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Hat- the- Duchess- 

ip -y\nD-I-5Aw-in 



IOROPE* 



WHAT— - 



THE 

DUCHESS *»> I 
SAW 

IN EUROPE 



WITH SKETCHES, POEMS, ETC. 



LOU J. BEAUCHAMP. 



HAMILTON, OHIO. 
1896. 






Gfft 

M *S. tdwin C. Oinwitfdfe 




r^ 



4 



Jjetiirntiou. 



To the best of wives, the "Little Woman," who has accompanied 
me in my travels on land and water over 700,000 miles, and whose 
presence and counsel have been my chiefest source of help as I have 
tried in His name to lift men to higher lives. 

LOU J. BEAUCHAMP. 
HAMILTON, OHIO. 



Vxzfutz. 

These sketches have been compiled at the request of 
many friends who desired them in a more permanent form 
than that offered by their original publication in the columns 
of daily and weekly journals, magazines, etc- The letters 
from Europe make no pretensions to literary elegance or 
finish. They were hastily written in moments snatched 
from sight-seeing, and aimed at nothing more than an 
attempt to let the friends at home know* our experiences 
day by day. Yet their reception was so kindly, and the 
requests for their collection in permanent form so nu- 
merous, that they are thus presented, in connection with 
certain sketches and poems that have had considerable favor 
in various journals and magazines. Just as they are, they 
are presented to the friends who have so royally stood by me 
in my twenty years' work for humanity, with the hope that 
they may enable the reader to pass at least a pleasant hour in 
their perusal. 

While I cannot say much for the literary worth of 
the reading matter, I can conscientiously recommend the 
quality of the paper on which the book is printed, the 
excellence of the printing, which was done by my old friends, 
Brown & Whitaker, of Hamilton, Ohio, and the high 
quality of the illustrations, which were made after my own 
photographs, by The Electric City Engraving Co., Buffalo, N.Y. 

LOU J. BEAUCHAMP. 

HAMILTON, OHIO. 



Note.— My thanks are due the publishers ot the New York 
Voice, Detroit Free Press and Hamilton, Ohio, Democrat for the use in 
these pages of my articles originally appearing in those journals. 



Tnlik af Contents. 



On Board the Steamer 9 

First News from England 17 

Sights and Scenes in Bonny Scotland 22 

Through Scotland and England 28 

London — The Metropolis of the World 34 

The Environs of London 39 

The Beauties of Europe 45 

In the Eternal City 55 

The Ancient City of Rome 62 

The City of Naples 70 

Under Italian Skies 77 

On with the Dance 84 

An Interesting Trip to the Silent City 91 

Rambles in Italy 102 

Florentia, the Beautiful 106 

Another Letter from the City of Flowers 1 16 

Lou j. Beauchamp 129 

The Town of Babyville 132 

A Strange Career 133 

My Lost Baby 136 

The Story of "The Little Woman" 137 

A Bit of Cheer ~ 142 

My Small Teacher 143 

The Mother's Prayer ■. . . . 149 

Does it Pay r 50 

God's Lighthouses 155 

A Visit to a Trappist Monastery 156 

Prestaere Fidem Morti 169 

Woman Suffrage 171 

What Baby Left 175 

The Circus - A Memory 176 

A Tiny Bit of a Fellow 181 

Platform Experiences 182 

A Mother's Story 189 

Always Tell Mother 191 

So Runs the World Away 197 

How to Live 198 

Unanswered 202 

A Crank's Answers to a Fool's Objections — No. 1 203 

Loves Last Words 207 

A Crank's Answers to a Fool's Objections — No. 2 208 

Love and Death 212 

Life's Atoms 213 

A Song for a Boy I Love 217 

A Night at a German Circus 218 

Literary Blunders 228 



■Jurtrx In Illustrations. 



PAGE. 

Portrait of the Author Frontispiece 

Steamship New York 13 

Stirling Castle 22 

G. La Touzel 26 

Our Hotel in the Trossachs 28 

Loch Katrine 30 

Windsor Castle 41 

Cathedral of Notre Dame 45 

Church of the Invalides 47 

The Castle of Chillon 49 

Our Hotel at Genoa 51 

Leaning Tower — Pisa 53 

The Roman Forum 56 

The Appian Way 58 

The Colosseum 59 

Gate of St. Paul 63 

Church of St. Peter L 66 

Cemetery of the Capuchin Monks 69 

Naples and Vesuvius 7.1 

A Macaroni Feast 73 

Royal Palace and Castle of St. Elmo 75 

Feeding the Pigeons — Venice 76 

Capri 78 

Our Hotel at Sorrento 84 

Birthplace of Shakespeare 90 

Room in which Shakespeare was Born 90 

The House of the Tragic Poet . .• ■ • • 97 

A Pompeian Victim 99 

Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus 103 

St. Mark's— Venice 105 

Milan Cathedral 107 

The City of Florence no 

The Madonna of the Chair 112 

The Champs Elysee — Paris 115 

The Place De La Concorde — Paris 115 

Church of San Croce 7 121 

Our Hotel at Venice 127 

Mr. Beauchamp, Wife and Son 128 

Portrait 129 

The Little Woman 137 

Sunshine Cottage 139 

The Music Room in Sunshine Cottage 140 

The Library 141 

The Little Man 143 

Entrance to the Monastery 15S 

The Monastery at Gethsemane 160 

The Refectory. 162 

The Reading Room 164 

The Cemetery 166 

Bridge of Sighs — Venice , 232 



(Dxrer ityc (Drsan. 

^.trirat the jtluchcss* cind 4 saiu ro gurxrpje. <£ts 
ffrigirotflg wrriiteu for the friends at Iramr. 



On Board Steamer City of New York, ~\ 

Sunday, May 17, 
1,000 Miles from I Don't Know Where. ) 



We haven't drunk a drop since we started, but the Duch- 
ess and I are more than "half seas over" at the present writ- 
ing — the log showing that we are about 1,900 miles from 
Sandy Hook light-house, and about 1,000 miles from Queens" 
town, the ship having taken the southern course, a few miles 
longer than the other two courses, but the better for this sea- 
son of the year. We left New York at 9:30 a. m. Wednesday, 
May 13th, on the ocean greyhound "New York" of the 
American Line — this ship having the fastest average east 
and west of all the vessels that are continually vexing the 
bosom of the mighty deep. We have 440 first-class passen- 
gers on board, 170 second class, and 425 in the steerage, 
which, with a crew of 385, makes 1,420 souls on board, in- 
cluding politicians and editors. 

The most wonderful thing about an ocean voyage is the 
ship the voyage is made in. To me an ocean "grey-hound" 
like the New York, is a greater wonder than any of the nine 

*"The Duchess" is Mr. Beauchamp's pet name for "The Little Woman" as 
used in all his writings when referring to her. 



wonders of the world. Think of a vessel like ours having 
on board more people than a good sized town — over 1,400, 
each of them having a bed-room, and some of them with reg- 
ular suites of rooms — parlor, sitting-room, bath-room and bed- 
room beside, with reading-rooms, bath-rooms, laundry-rooms, 
music-rooms and immense dining-rooms for all. In addition 
to these accommodations there is room for thousands of tons 
of baggage and freight, and coal room for 3,000 tons of coal. 
The home of the Duchess and I has nine rooms, with hot and 
cold water up and down stairs, yet about 10 tons of coal does 
us for the year, while the amount consumed by this steam- 
ship each twenty-four hours is three hundred tons, or enough 
to run our home thirty years. 

The total cost of running this vessel from New York to 
Liverpool and back is $115,000. Its length is 560 feet, and 
it has 18,500 horse power. 

The laws governing the provisioning of trans-Atlantic 
steamers provide that there must be sufficient food to sustain 
the life of every person on. board for thirty days. Barring 
accidents, the longest voyage will not exceed nine or ten 
days, so that every vessel at the start is generally well pro- 
vided. Comparatively few people have any idea of the vast 
quantity of food that is required to supply the passengers and 
crew of a large steamer. On a recent trip there was used 
(perhaps not all of it actually consumed) 17,500 pounds of 
dressed beef, 3,600 pounds of mutton, 500 pounds of lamb, 
500 pounds of veal, 1,510 head of chickens, ducks and tur- 
keys, 450 head of grouse and squab, 1,250 pounds offish, 
3,780 pounds of butter, nearly 700 dozen eggs, 12 y 2 tons of 
potatoes, 280 heads of cabbage, 1,500 pounds of turnips and 
carrots, besides a large quantity of other vegetables, such as 
beets, cauliflower, beans, peas, lettuce, etc.; 146 barrels of 
flour, 5,000 oranges, 15 barrels of apples, 400 pounds of 
grapes, dozens of boxes of pears, peaches, plums and lemons, 
7,000 pounds of sugar. Added to this list may be mentioned 

10 



I 3)5°°P oun ds of corned pork, nearly 3,000 pounds of bacon 
and ham, 1,000 pounds of corned beef, 300 gallons of fresh 
milk and sixty gallons of condensed milk. Besides these ar- 
ticles are all the list of staples and dainties, dozens of which 
might be enumerated. On this particular voyage 2,812 bot- 
tles of ale, 2,400 bottles of mineral waters and nearly 300 
bottles of other kinds of drinks disappeared. 

The laundry bill is no small item when it includes such 
a list as this for the use of a single trip: 8,300 napkins, 180 
tablecloths, 3,600 sheets, 4,400 pillow-cases, 16,200 towels, 
besides dozens of blankets, counterpanes, etc. 

Except one be intimately acquainted with the working 
and running of an ocean steamer, it is hard to realize the 
number of hands that are actually required in the various de- 
partments of the ship. There are three departments — the 
sailing, the engineer, and the passenger. Altogether from 
300 to 425 hands are required, as a rule, to run an ocean 
express liner. 

The engines cost about one-third of the entire value of 
a ship. It is easier to speak of 14,000 or 18,000 horse-power 
than to realize the tremendous force that is exerted on such 
a vessel as the New York. The immense machinery of these 
great vessels is greater than anything now existing, and is 
capable of propelling the ships at a speed of 22.4 knots an 
hour. 

Some interesting and miscellaneous notes concerning the 
steamers that have been and are now upon the Atlantic may 
be found in the following: The first steamship that crossed, 
the Atlantic was the Savannah, in 18 18. The largest steam- 
ship ever constructed was the Great Eastern, 680 feet long, 
83 feet beam, 18,500 tons, coal capacity 12,000 tons, with 
accommodations for 4,000 passengers. She cost $3,720,000. 

The steamers Paris, New York, Teutonic and Majestic 
were the first vessels built for the Atlantic service with triple- 
expansion engines and twin screws. The Servia was the first 



mail steamer in the New York trade to be built of steel. The 
greatest distance covered by a steamship in a single day is 
560 miles, done by the Lucania, from noon October 5, to 
•noon October 6. 

From March, 1841, to February, 1893, 125 steamers in 
the Atlantic service were lost, and 7,523 lives were lost dur- 
ing the same period. 

The Duchess and myself have not only possessed our 
souls in patience thus far on the long journey, but we have 
possessed our stomachs also, which is more than some others 
can say. I have seen more good victuals wasted on this trip 
than would suffice to feed the First ward for a week, but it 
was not due to poor management or carelessness; — it was 
rather due to force of circumstances and the further fact that 
you can't keep a big ship level in all seas, and no matter how 
level a head a fellow has, it won't conduce to a level stomach 
when the ship concludes to "rock-a-bye-baby." 

But all in all we have had a remarkably fine passage. 
None of the waves have been higher than the fees we are 
compelled to pay the stewards and waiters, and the sun has 
been with us most of the time, keeping us warm and good- 
humored. About the only thing that has troubled us has 
been to find time to do all the eating necessary. The policy 
of this steamer seems to be to feed their passengers well, no 
matter whether they in turn feed the fishes or no. Our bed- 
room steward wakes us up at 7:30 with coffee and toast. 

We discuss that in bed, and then leisurely dress for 
breakfast at 9. At 10 we have beef tea and sandwiches, lem- 
onade and cakes, on deck, and from 12 to 2 take luncheon. 
At 4 the beef tea appears once more, or one may have tea, 
coffee or lemonade if preferred, with sandwiches, ginger 
snaps, strawberries and oranges. At 6 dinner, with all the 
good things of the best hotels, and if you should get hungry 
before 9 you have only to go to the buffet and help yourself, 
and from 9 to 10 supper is served in the dining room for 

12 




'J 



those who have any place to put it. If the days were a few 
hours longer I'm afraid I'd bust before I reach Liverpool. 

The ladies play shuffle-board and ring-toss, checkers, 
keep their diaries, read, or criticise the dresses of the prom- 
enaders, while the men play whist, hearts, pedro, and good 
"Old Sledge" in the smoking room. Gambling is not per- 
mitted; the only form of it visible being in the shape of pools 
on the day's run of the ship. 

This morning the captain read the beautiful English 
church service in the main cabin, and read it well, the re- 
sponses being made by the passengers; the singing conducted 
by the officers and passengers being unusually fine. I judge 
the captain is a very pious man, for as he entered the cabin 
to open the service he didn't find the pulpit in the place he 
had ordered it placed, and turning to the janitor said, with a 
look of pious resignation on his handsome face: "Damn it, 
why wasn't this put where it belongs?" But he didn't swear 
when he pronounced the benediction and the first cuss word 
may not be counted against him. 

One of the saddest cases that ever came to my attention 
is that of a couple of friends of mine on board. This is their 
bridal trip. They are neither of them spring chickens. But 
before meeting each other they had arrived at that age when 
both sexes are prone to believe that there is no possible chance 
of getting a mate and have resolved to follow Scripture and 
"grin and bear it." But when to these loved ones mates are 
given, they are just a little bit worse in the display of affec- 
tion than the younger tribe of the newly wed. This couple 
came on board as happy as Joe McMaken when he gets a 
new bill passed at Columbus. They had taken the cheapest 
rate of first-class passage and on applying for their quarters 
found, that according to the rules of the company, the wife 
was to share a room with three other women, the groom mean- 
while doing the same in a room with three other men about 
a half a mile away and not even a telephone line between. 

14 



I thought the bride aged ten years in a single moment and 
the groom is rapidly dwindling into senility. They came to 
me about it, and their tears would have moved Gov. Hicks 
to some show of emotion. Even Miles Lindley would have 
wept tears, or whatever it is he weeps when he does weep. 
They asked me how such things could be in this nineteenth 
century — the very twilight of a nineteenth century, as it were, 
and then their tears gushed forth again, even before I could 
explain that the Duchess and myself were offered the same 
privilege of living apart for a week or so, but preferred to pay 
$42 extra for the privilege of a stateroom which should belong 
for that length of time to us two only. Their faces lit up at 
this explanation, as their pile was big enough to stand the 
$42, but alack and alas, there wasn't a stateroom on board 
that wasn't as full of people as these two poor souls are at 
present full of sorrow. To make matters worse thejjbride has 
been the sickest woman on board ever since the first meal. 
She has thrown up everything she has owned since the 13th, 
except her love for her husband, and he, through what a doc- 
tor would call reflex action, is in the same condition. When 
the morning breaks and the pair so rudely torn from each 
other's arms the night before come flying together in the sa- 
loon it takes a block and tackle to get them apart. If we 
don't reach land pretty soon I'm afraid it will be another case 
of Paul and Virginia. I'll bet a dollar they have better luck 
going back for the groom says he'll buy a ship of his own be- 
fore he'll take such another bridal trip as this one has been. 

We sighted a school of whales this morning, but were 
too far off to find out what teacher was in charge of the school 
or whether they were thinking of buying up land in the First 
ward for a new building. I'm sorry about this, but it can't 
be helped now. The gong has just sounded for another meal 
and I suppose the school is dismissed by this time. 

I find that it takes so much time to eat here that I have 
little time left for writing, but hope to be more ready for the 

'5 



pen on land. I notice that we have left the land of McKinley 
behind us. Champagne sells on board at just one-half the 
price charged in America, and my one drink — Apollinaris — 
at six-pence, instead of the "quarter" charged in "the land 
of the free and the home of the brave." It will only cost 
"tuppence" in England. I am getting so now that I can't 
talk United States on money matters. It is entirely pounds, 
shillings and pence on board-ship, sovereigns, " half sovs." 
and crowns. 




16 



First :\ r euis from gnglmtd. 

For three days preceding our arrival at Liverpool, our 
steamer encountered severe head winds, delaying her consid- 
erably — her time from Sandy Hook to Queenstown being 
six days and eight hours. The roughness of the sea must 
have been profitable to the company for the tables were nearly 
deserted, but " yours truly" was there on hand four times a 
day. The Duchess and Mrs. Skillman had one day charged 
against them, but I can testify that it was due to severe head- 
aches and not to the fashionable disease, "Oh, Lordy." 
This was very creditable to them when I state that at one 
time the sea was rough enough to throw one passenger out 
of his berth, breaking three of his ribs and severely injuring 
him otherwise. However as we neared Queenstown the sea 
went down and from there to Liverpool we had fine weather 
and ocean and land pictures as beautiful as we ever looked 
upon. The Duchess and I stayed on deck till 2 a. m. to see 
the transferring of the Queenstown passengers, baggage and 
the English mails and to get a paper that we might learn the 
American news. The newsmen clambered from the tender 
to the "New York" and rapidly sold out their stock at a 
shilling each. I purchased a foreign edition of the New 
York Herald and London Standard, and searching the col- 
umns of both papers thoroughly, found one item of American 
news— the death of a large St. Bernard dog in Boston. It 
was a heavy stroke to me, to think that while I was enjoying 
myself several thousand miles away, a good, and above all, a 
big dog, from Boston was passing through the valley of the 
shadow. Had I only known he was in danger of passing 

«7 



away I might have stayed at home and soothed him in his 
dying moments. Dog-gone it anyhow. I have been on land 
now for five days and have gotton hardly a line of American 
news more important than this. 

We reached Liverpool at 6 p. m. Wednesday last, and 
I got my first experience of English ways at the dock. One 
thousand passengers were driven into a room large enough to 
hold one-fifth of the number and informed that they must 
wait there till the baggage had all been brought out of the 
vessel and placed alphabetically in an adjoining room, that it 
might be examined by the custom officers. This looked to 
me as if it would be a work of hours, so I got my party to- 
gether, had our hand baggage examined and left the heavier 
baggage to its fate, while we went to an hotel and had our 
first English meal. Late at night returned to the dock, got 
our baggage through all right and was then free from further 
worry. England demands duties on about a dozen articles 
only ; tobacco, cigars, cologne and liquors being the prin- 
cipal ones. ******! am more of a free trader 
than I was when I started. When $10 to $17 will buy a full 
suit of clothes, best quality woolen goods, made to order ; 
sixty cents, a pair of Dent's kid gloves for men, and the same 
price, the best quality of ladies' kids, each dollar of differ- 
ence between the English and the American price is too much 
of an argument in favor of open ports and free trade to the 
man who has to earn his money before he spends it. A hat 
costing $3 in America costs one-third the sum here. With 
England the commercial mistress of the world, and her ports 
practically wide open to the world's manufactories, I have 
hard work trying to solve the puzzle of the McKinley protec- 
tion scheme. 

During our passage over I took part in two concerts on 
board the steamer. I didn't do any singing, but held up my 
end of the show with some stories that seemed to satisfy the 
people. On the last night out the usual concert and enter- 

18 



tainment for the benefit of the English and American Sailors' 
Orphans' home, was given, Marshall Wilder, the dwarf New 
York humorist, taking part and amusing us thoroughly. 
Several theatrical and musical people on board recited and 
sang and the receipts were $205. Among the "lady patron- 
esses," having charge of the raising of the money, were Kate 
Forsythe, the actress, and the Duchess. 

Liverpool, where we were given a public reception, and 
where I spoke to two thousand enthusiastic Englishmen, is a 
marvel in the way of a municipal corporation. I rode fifteen 
miles over its streets and found not a single square on which 
I could not have sat and eaten a meal. No mud, dirt or 
breaks, but every square yard as clean as a parlor floor and 
hard as the rock-ribbed cheek of a Hamilton fruit tree agent. 
(I wouldn't have used this simile if the agent who sold me a 
lot of good-for-nothing trees had replaced them as he promis- 
ed.) Standing on the prominent street corners of the city 
are life-saving ladders of the fire department, ready to be used 
by the citizens before the department arrives on the scene, 
if they are needed. This struck me me as a good idea in so 
large a city and where the houses are many stories high. 
The public parks, Sefton and Princess, are the finest I ever 
saw, and while they are beautiful with lakes, flowers and 
shrubbery, play grounds, cricket and tennis courts are found 
in all parts that they may be of real benefit to the people as 
well as places of beauty. While Liverpool has its poor quar- 
ters, it struck me as being made up principally of solid and 
comfortable residences, the cleanest and most prosperous 
looking place of its size I ever saw. There is not a frame 
building in the city, and for that matter I have not seen one 
in England or Scotland. 

From Liverpool our party went by special train to Glas- 
gow, and I must say I am not altogether stuck on English 
railways. They are substantially built, no team can cross 
the tracks, all roads being built over or under the rails, no 

19 



one is allowed to walk on the road-bed, and they make from 
thirty to sixty miles an hour, but the coaches are simply 
boxes divided into compartments seating ten passengers — 
who sit five on a side facing each other, first, second and 
third class compartments in the same coach — the only differ- 
ence being a slight one in the upholstering; third-class is 
about one-half the first-class fare and just as good, the latter 
being used solely by the aristocracy and the snobs. I im- 
agine the entire cost of one of these cars to be less than $500. 
They have no toilet rooms or water closets, the trains stop- 
ping at depots occasionally to allow passengers to use the 
latter convenience, but charging them two cents for the privi- 
lege. A first-class vestibuled train such as the ''velvet" 
train on the C. H. & D. or the Erie road, would frighten 
the English nation into fits. There is one thing I do like 
about the railroad system here, however — the roads act as 
though they believed a brakeman was worth something to his 
family and the world. Every freight car is like its neighbor 
— there being no difference in height or width, and it has 
immense bumpers, eighteen inches long, and there is no 
chance of a brakeman getting crushed to death in coupling 
them. I hope this will be the case in our country soon, for 
I have learned to look on a railroad man as a hero — brave as 
any who go to fields of battle — with their lives always in their 
hands, and anything that tends to protect them wins my 
heartiest approval. You are not bothered with peanut boys 
on the train, — the conductor takes your ticket at the end of 
the journey, but if you have no ticket then you must pay 
regular fare, not from the station you got on at, but from the 
starting point of the train to the end of the line. 

The English country is the finest sight I ever saw. 
Every bit of land is tilled, and green with grass for the stock, 
substantial fences and quaint, but clean and neat farm houses 
dotted here and there. No rubbish is to be seen anywhere, 
and the whole country looks like one immense park. This 



is due to the fact that England has an immense population 
and comparatively little ground and there is no room for rub- 
bish Every foot must yield its income and so the farming 
is something wonderful. The cattle and sheep are finer than 
any we see in the states. There seems to be absolutely no 
waste or unproductive land and no scrub stock. The farm 
villages and small towns are pictures, and the journey across 
the ocean is worth taking if we have only time to travel for a 
day through the English territory and see what English farm- 
ing is like. 

Of Glasgow and Edinboro I will tell you in my next. 
It is now 1 1 o'clock at night and is just getting dark, a state- 
ment that may seem strange to your readers, but I spoke at a 
public meeting in Queen Street hotel to-night, had my supper 
afterwards and it was yet light as day. We are far up to the 
north is the explanation. It is pretty cold here, but we ate 
apricots, grapes and muskmelon for dinner to-day. This is 
a wonderful country. The sights are full of interest, every 
square foot takes us back to the days when kings and com- 
moners made history. We have been in the palaces of kings 
and queens and seen monuments and forts and abbeys and 
churches grander than anything the new world can boast of, 
but we have seen nothing that would benefit us to leave 
America, or wean us from the best part of the world — dear 
old Butler county — or Hamilton. 




Sights and Sircnes in Banng Scotland. 



So far as the Duchess and I have travelled we are of the 
opinion that Scotland's capital, Edinboro is the finest city 
we have ever seen. Its castle, palace, monuments, public 
and private buildings, parks and situation, all combine to 
make it unique — to say nothing of the historical associations 
connected with it. The castle is of course the first object of 
interest, rising as it does, far above the city, and frowning 




STIRLING CASTLE 



down upon it with the dignity of hoary, yet peaceful old age. 
When it was built the guide books and encyclopedias will 
tell you, but in its low-ceiled rooms Mary, queen of Scots, 
before the shadows fell upon her, reigned supreme. It was 
here that she gave birth to kings. And in sight of the castle 
is Holyrood Palace, at the opposite end of the city, where 



Rizzio was murdered; while midway between these places 
Darnley was killed. One can have no possible conception 
of the lives and customs of the kings and queens in the old 
times till these castles and palaces have been seen. We 
boast of our great buildings in America, but compared to 
such edifices as these English and Scotch castles, palaces, 
abbeys, etc., they fall into insignificance. The castle of 
Stirling and the one at Edinboro, both now used as garrisons 
for English troups, are situated on immense rocks, that are 
seemingly as impregnable as Gibraltar. Add to these rocks, 
with their height and solidity the massive walls that have 
already withstood time's rude shocks for centuries, and one 
can understand something of England's success in holding 
her little island against the world. 

Edinboro is built on the sides of great hills and is sur- 
rounded on three sides by yet greater heights — Castle Mount, 
Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat — the latter a mountain shaped 
on the top like a saddle — hence its name. 

On Calton Hill are a number of monuments, the one of 
Lord Nelson being nearly 200 feet high. On its top is a 
time ball, which drops at 1 p. m., Greenwich time, accom- 
panied by the firing of a cannon to let those within doors 
know the exact time. 

On Princess street, in some respects the finest street in 
the world, stands the beautiful monument to Walter Scott, 
designed by a young Scotch architect, who unfortunately was 
accidently drowned before the completion of the same. It 
stands in a beautiful park in the center of which, some fifty 
feet below the level of the upper plateau, run the railroad 
tracks of one of the great roads of the country. There are 
monuments all over the city, several of them being fully 200 
feet high. One cannot turn his eyes in any direction with- 
out seeing a monument or a public building of rarely attract- 
ive form or size. Many of these are Grecian in their archi- 
tecture and they, as well as the universities and schools of 

23 



Edinboro, have given the city the name of the " Modern 
Athens." The city is divided into two parts, the old and the 
new city, the former being built on the side of a hill run- 
ning down from the Castle hill toward the plain beginning at 
the foot of Arthur's Seat. The old town is a place of rare 
interest. The modern buildings have been forced to pattern 
somewhat after the older ones. They rise eight or ten stories 
high, are very narrow, and between them are the "closes" 
or narrow alleys, passing from one street to another and un- 
der and through older houses. These passages look very 
uncanny to us Americans, and we prefer to walk farther and 
find a street that has more breadth and light. These build- 
ings in Old Town are sometimes four stories high in front on 
one street, and six or eight stories high at the. back on an- 
other street. 

Here in Old Town can be seen the old house where 
John Knox was born, and it was here in Edinboro, in Holy- 
rood palace, he dared tell Mary of her sins. The spot on 
which the martyrs were burned is found in Cowgate and 
called the Heart of Midlothian. Wonderfully interesting 
these quaint old streets, many of them crowded with human- 
ity's wrecks. Such beggars, drunkards and outcasts cannot 
be paralleled in the worst parts of New York. I have seen 
five girls, the youngest not eight, the oldest not twelve, drunk 
together. Ragged, bare-limbed, bare-headed women throw 
their arms about the bodies of strange men and try to get 
money out of their pockets, while the stolid police officer looks 
on with indifference. 

We are getting used to the method of serving meals in 
this country, but there is not one of us but would give twenty 
shillings — a five dollar William, for a good old American 
square meal. We take breakfast at eight o'clock. The En- 
glish and Scotch people take simply a cup of tea, with bread 
and jam, but for Americans an extra breakfast, at extra cost, 
is prepared, consisting of these things, with fish, ham and 

24 



eggs, chop or steak. At one we lunch on cold meat, bread, 
butter and jam. And at six p. m. we take dinner. This is 
served table d'hote — and it takes one hour and forty minutes 
to go through it properly. Soup, first, of course. When all 
are through, then fish, meats and fowl succeed, and then a 
dozen kinds of puddings, tarts, preserved and natural fruits 
follow, with cheese and crackers to wind up on. Tea and 
coffee is not served at either luncheon or dinner, save at ex- 
tra cost. I must say that the cooking is far better than that 
found in our American hotels, and the service is perfect. 

You should have seen the Duchess, Mrs. Skillman and 
yours truly upholding the dignity of Ohio the other night. 
The Lord Provost, Her Majesty's representative in the Scot- 
tish capitol, and the city councilors sent us invitations to at- 
tend a reception and conversazione at the museum of science 
and art. It was a full dress affair, and it would have para- 
lyzed the Fourth ward to have seen me in full dress, white 
tie and lavender gloves. I looked pretty enough to kill. 
The Duchess wore black silk trimmed with irridescent beads, 
diamonds, and her hair decorated with gorse flowers, a Scot- 
tish plant. Mrs. Skillman wore black silk trimmed with lav- 
ender and flowers. The councilors received us standing in 
their red and gold robes of office in the broad, inner court of 
the museum. We drove up in coaches, put off our wraps in 
the cloak room and handing our cards to the dignified head 
pusher, were announced by name and immediately ushered 
into the presence of the twelve councilors. Over 3,000 peo- 
ple were present, who after the presentation, roamed through 
the magnificent halls of the museum, partook of refresh- 
ments at will, and listened to the music of one of the finest 
bands in Great Britain, the full Scottish uniformed band of 
Her Majesty's Cameron Highlanders, thirty in number. At 
intervals a genuine band of bag-pipers crooned Scottish mel- 
odies through the halls. The sight was one of the most beau- 
tiful we have ever seen and the invitation was highly appre- 

25 



ciated by our American contingent. This was our fourth 
reception in Great Britain. 

It is almost impossible for me to make these preliminary 
letters as interesting or as full as I would have them, as I 
must write them during the sessions of the Good Templars 
International Supreme Lodge, which I came to attend, and 
which occupies our whole time morning, afternoon and night; 
after finishing our meals we are tired enough to seek our 




G. LA TOUZEL, 

OUR COURIER, IN ARAB COSTUME 



beds. Our work here closes to-morrow night and then for 
the rest of our trip we have only to see, eat and write. 

I want to tell something of life among the people of these 
countries when I have time. Such poverty and crime as 
have come under our notice under the shadow of palaces and 

26 • 



castles, tells plainly the story of America's superiority so far 
as the conservation of a people's welfare is concerned. Mon- 
archical countries may build mighty buildings, but it takes 
free Americans to build mighty men. We have poverty and 
crime enough, God knows, but it does not get down into such 
abject depths as here, where every fifth person seems an ob- 
ject of charity, or a victim of vice. 




27 



Through Sratlaud and gnglnnri, 

EN ROUTE TO LONDON. 



We have left Royal Edinboro behind us, and a royal 
city it is. Of all the places we have visited thus far this cap- 
ital of the north is the fairest. London is just 401 miles 
south-west of Edinboro,- through a country so beautifully cared 
for it seems one enormous park. There is no waste land, but 




OUR HOTEL IN THE TROSSACHS. 

one thing that strikes the observer is so little of it is devoted 
to farming. The Scottish part of it seems all sheep land, tens 
of thousands of sheep of finer breed than the prize ones at 
our fair dotting grazing fields that are more beautiful than the 
blue grass part of Kenkucky, while the land in England is 
divided between sheep and cattle. The horses in this coun- 
try are either great Normans and Percherons or else little 

28 



donkeys, the former being wonderfully powerful and the 
latter wonderfully comical, pulling great loads about a dozen 
times as large as themselves and yet looking as if they enjoyed 
life thoroughly. 

The people of Scotland are all strong and large, the 
picture of health, the women fair in face, but to us awkward 
in their walk and with feet that would scare even a Chicago 
belle. It is an absolute fact that the people's feet are so large 
that I could not get a pair of shoes in Edinboro for myself 
except by taking a pair of ladies' shoes. To my fellow citi- 
zens who have marveled at the size of my understanding, 
this may seem like stretching the truth, but I am ready to 
swear to it on all the bibles in Hamilton. But with their 
great bodies they have great natures and great hearts and we 
cannot help loving them. We have left dear friends in bonny 
Scotland, and will long keep in memory these, and the grand 
views of castles, palaces, fen and loch. One red letter day 
of our lives was that on which we sailed on Loch Katrine and 
Loch Lomond and saw Ben-Lomond, Ben A'an, Ben-Venue 
and Ben-Ledi or Hill of God. The mountain sides are cov- 
ered with the yellow gorse, and thousands of sheep, with 
their shepherds are to be seen, with here and there a stone 
hut, in which the latter lives, and occasionally a large house, 
the home of the sheep owner. The cattle in the Scottish high- 
lands are small, with great, long, wide horns, and long hair 
falling all over their heads and bodies — a breed never seen 
in America. 

This country is full of story, song and legend of Rob 
Roy, Helen McGregor, his wife, and the various clans of the 
border. It is the country of "The Lady of the Lake," also, 
and almost every foot has its legend. 

Wallace Bruce, the poet and lecturer, a famous figure at 
our Chautauquas, is U. S. consul at Edinboro, and on invi- 
tation from him our party visited Holyrood Palace one eve- 
ning, with permission to enter the royal apartments, which are 

29 



not exposed to public view. We saw Queen Mary's room, 
her supper room, in which Rizzio was murdered, the blood 
stains on the floor, the throne and audience room, and also 
dining room, the tables set for a dinner to be given by the 
lord high commissioner that evening. Such silver, china and 
glassware was a revelation to us, and I imagine that had it 
not been for the guards every few feet half the tableware 
would have been minus, for we Americans are great on get- 
■ ing souvenirs wherever we go. 




LOCH KATRINE, ROB ROY'S PRISON AND BEN VENUE. 

Another delightful trip we took was to Abbotsford, the 
home of Walter Scott. There is no suggestion of Grub street 
and poverty here. The wealthiest of authors, as well as one 
of the greatest, had a home fit for such a man. It is a ver- 
itable palace on the banks of the Tweed, thirty-seven miles 
from Edinboro, and three miles from Melrose abbey, the 
finest ruin in Great Britian. The house is left just as it was 

30 



in Scott's time, the armor of all periods, the libraries and pic- 
tures arranged by Sir Walter himself. Here are to be seen 
the gifts of kings and nobles, the personal possessions of Na- 
poleon, Mary, Queen of Scots, Rob Roy, his wife, jewel 
cases, carved tables, snuff boxes, set with rarest stones, paint- 
ings of masters, etc. One of the most interesting things in 
the house is a painting of the decapitated head of Queen 
Mary executed the day after her death. The house is now 
the residence of and owned by Lady Hollowell, the grand- 
daughter of Sir Walter. The gardens attached to the resi- 
dence are magnificent, and the Duchess desiring a flower as a 
memento, I tried the potency of a shilling upon the gardener, 
and slipping me away from the rest of the party, he locked 
me within the garden and plucked for me a bouquet of large 
size and sweetest perfume. 

Poets and painters have raved over Melrose and I do 
not propose to describe it, or anything else seen in our tour, 
as guide books, encyclopedias, and works of travel in every 
library, will give your readers the full facts as to size, cost, 
and time of building. The one thing only worth the saying 
here is to express wonder that hundreds of years ago, build- 
ings greater and more magnificent than any we have to-day, 
could have been erected by a people that were semi-barbaric, 
if their historians have told the whole truth about their customs 
and habits. Here in Melrose lies the heart of Bruce, and 
the bodies of kings and queens. Over their tombs the lichen 
and moss creep undisturbed and the bats and owls hold car- 
nival above them. In the ruined -towers of the abbey stands 
the modern clock, (modern as compared to the abbey itself), 
put in place 300 years ago, and still striking the hours. If 
its hands could only write down what has transpired before 
its face, what a story it would be ! It costs a shilling to see 
Abbotsford and a six-pence to gain entrance to the abbey. 
In both these places, as in all other places of interest in this 
country, a room is given up to the sale of photographs, white 

31 



wood needle cases, and souvenirs of the place, and it is en 
regie for each visitor to load himself down with the same. 
One commendable feature is the fact that they are very cheap. 

But the greatest city in the world lies south of us, and 
our time is up to set out for London, with its 5,000,000 of 
population, its historic tower, its great St. Paul, and West 
Minster abbey, the grandest resting place for the illustrious 
dead the world knows of. 

The run of 401 miles is made in less than eight hours 
actual running time. An English car must cost about one-fif- 
teenth what an American one does, and has no closets or 
toilet accommodations. Ten people fill a compartment, there 
being about four compartments to each car, sometimes all of 
one class, sometimes one car having first, second and third 
class compartments. There is comparatively little difference 
between them. At every other town or so the train halts a 
few moments at the station and lunch is obtained, either 
first or third class. The rooms adjoin ; the same things are 
sold in each place, quantity and quality the same, but the 
third-class prices are about 25 per cent, the cheapest. Of 
course there is no way of telling whether you are first or third 
class, and you can enter either division you please. If you 
desire to wash your hands and face, it will cost you four cents, 
and if closet conveniences are necessary, it sounds Munch- 
ausen-like, but it's a fact, " drop a penny in the slot and the 
door will open." In the ladies' room there is no slot in the 
door, but an old woman sits near by and exacts tribute from 
all who enter. I would like to do some tall writing on this 
extortion, but the subject is a delicate one. In many of the 
first-class hotels in London it costs four cents to wash your- 
self in the wash-room. This is to prevent strangers from 
using the hotel conveniences without compensation, and the 
guest can pay the price or go to his room, as he chooses. All 
the hotels add from one to two shillings a day for "attend- 
ance." This has reference to your can of hot water, the 



blacking of your boots and the cleaning up of your room. 
Many of the hotels will take you in — literally as well as figur- 
atively — for a fixed price, but it is more usual to take your 
room and breakfast at the hotel and lunch and dine where 
you choose. But as this letter is long enough I will leave 
London and its sights and peculiarities for another time, 
simply adding that we are all well and hearty, seeing every- 
thing, laughing at everybody and enjoying ourselves seeing 
everybody laugh at us. An American is instantly found out 
here. In three minutes after I left the hotel, before I had 
opened my mouth, a bootblack accosted me saying: "A 
regular Yankee shine for a penny, sir." 




33 



tnnrlnn— The TOrtrtrpolis of the HttxxxU. 

The American contingent desires to thus publicly return 
sincere thanks to the London 'bus men for not "striking" 
till we had finished our visit and were about setting out for 
Paris! It is true we used the cabs a great deal, the fare in 
which is only about a shilling for an ordinary drive for two 
persons, but a great deal of rare enjoyment is to be had view- 
ing the streets, stores and people from the top of a penny or 
"tup-penny" 'bus. These vehicles, much like an ordinary 
omnibus, save that they have seats on the roof for about six- 
teen people, and stairs to ascend, go over regular routes all 
over London. Unlike a street car they drive up to the curb 
to allow you to mount or get off, and they all go at the rat- 
tling London pace, which is about forty per cent, faster than 
that of Chicago. We only found one street car or tram-way 
line in London, running from near Holborn street through 
the famous White Chapel district, one of the slums of this 
great city. 

We rode over this route on Sunday last and it seems to 
me we must have seen the whole of London's 4,000,000 pop- 
ulation. A good part of them were drunk, many were fight- 
ing, both sexes engaging in the fun with equal force, and in 
the Jewish quarter they had a regular market, including a 
"rag-fair," where old clothes were to be had at your own 
price. This market seemed too crowded to allow room for 
even another person and the noise resembled a primary in 
the Fourth ward. We saw the place of the murders of Jack, 
the Ripper, and no longer wonder at the ease with which he 
has performed his butcheries and escaped notice. 

34 



There is a wonderful difference between the slums of 
London, and Piccadilly, Hyde Park, and the strand. Here 
the stores and residences, theatres and music -halls are pal- 
aces and one seems to be in another land and among an en- 
tirely different people. The equipages on view in Hyde park 
during the fashionable morning and evening hours are too 
gorgeous for description here, and with so many people riding 
and driving one wonders that any one is left to walk. 

Of course we visited the sights of London, the tower first. 
London tower was commenced by William the Conquer- 
or, in 1066, and has the appearance within of an exten- 
sive town, there being various ranges of buildings and sev- 
eral streets, besides the barracks for the soldiers. Within 
the walls the area is twelve acres. The old ditch, now used 
as a garden, surrounding the land side (the tower standing 
on the bank of the Thames)' has a stretch of 3,165 feet. The 
tower was used as a royal residence till after Elizabeth came 
to the throne, since which time it has been used as a prison 
and a place of security for the regalia. The tower is watched 
over by "the beef-eaters," great Englishmen, still wearing 
the costumes of "ye ancient tyme." In the armories are 
stands of arms, ancient and modern, for over 1,000,000 men, 
arranged most artistically in shapes of shields, flowers, etc., 
also figures of the kings of England in the armor they wore 
when alive. The royal jewels, worth $15,000,000, are beau- 
tiful beyond power of the pen to describe, and the Duchess 
and myself both came to the conclusion that if any country 
wants to engage us to be king and queen, and will give us 
a guarantee not to do the beheading act during our reign we 
are open to proposals. 

To us the most interesting parts of the tower were the 
Beauchamp tower, where Lord Dudley, with other notables, 
was imprisoned, and on the walls of which their graven names 
and sentences of resignation and fidelity are still to be seen; 
the Bloody tower, where the two princes, sons of Edward IV, 

35 



were murdered by their Uncle Richard's orders; the stairs, 
where 178 years after, their bones were found, and the spot 
where Mary, Queen of Scots, Lady Jane Grey and Lord 
Dudley, were beheaded. In the cemetery attached lies the 
dust of Annie Boleyn, Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, 
Lord Somerset, Duke of Monmouth and other notable vic- 
tims. Here on Tower hill was born William Penn. I for- 
got to mention that the Kohinoor diamond was to be seen 
in the regalia room, but after allowing for the payment of our 
board bill the Duchess and I found we had not sufficient 
money left to purchase it, so it still remains there. 

The houses of parliament, on the banks of the Thames, 
have been seen too often by your readers in pictures for me 
to occupy time and space in describing them, but when seen 
from the opposite bank of the river or from the magnificent 
Westminister bridge, they far surpass in majestic grandeur 
our own beautiful capitol. The facade along the Thames is 
940 feet long, the three towers, 340, 318 and 300 feet high, 
the central one having a clock with a twenty-three foot dial, 
and a bell, "Big Ben," weighing thirteen tons. The oldest 
part of the structure is Westminster hall, built by William 
Rufus in 1097. Here those nobles who favored the Stuarts, 
and King Charles I. were condemned to death. The par- 
liament house, has 1,100 rooms, cost $15,000,000, is built of 
Yorkshire magnesian limestone, and is already crumbling, 
something unusual in London edifices, those that have stood 
for a dozen centuries looking as if built but a few years past. 
Since the attempt to blow up the building by dynamite visi- 
tors may only enter for a short time on Saturday, and no 
cloaks or parcels can be carried inside, not even a lady's 
hand satchel. The Duchess had her gossamer with her and 
was compelled to wear it all through the building. England 
is a great nation, but she trembles to-day in her very capitol 
at the sight of a little woman with a shopping bundle in her 
hand. Bully for free America, where we aren't afraid of any- 

36 



thing but the other fellows getting another term in Washington. 
London is dark, dingy and mouldy with age, and when 
sunk into semi-obscurity by a fog, smells and seems like one 
vast charnel house, but if the sun condescends to shine, and 
one stands in the neighborhood of venerable Westminster 
abbey, or St. Paul's, he is ready to forgive everything on 
being permitted to see these grand churches. They are both 
the very personification of inanimate, voiceless majesty, but 
if the tongues of their bells could speak, or their noble dead 
could be touched into life, what tales they could thrill the 
world with. The abbey was built by King Sebert, 616, 
twelve centuries or more ago, and added to and improved 
by kings till finished under the designs of Sir Christopher 
Wren in the eighteenth century. Here have been crowned 
all the kings and queens of England since Harold, and here 
stands the coronation chair, and beneath it the Stone of Scone, 
on which these personages have sat during the ceremony, and. 
which was used for the same purpose in Scotland and Ireland 
even before Harold's time. But grand as the abbey is with- 
out and within, its chief interest lies in the illustrious dead 
buried within and the marvelous tombs erected to their mem- 
ory. We saw so many tombs of kings and queens, we began 
to long for those of a few "jacks." Here are the tombs of 
Henry VII, James I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Charles II, Wil- 
liam and Mary, George II, Queen Elizabeth, Henry V, 
Queen Eleanor, Edward, the Confessor —oh, go get an ency- 
clopedia, life's too short and postage too high. The monu- 
ments are marvels of grandeur and beauty, some of them 
priceless and all majestic and artistic. I used to want to be 
cremated when I went hence, but if England wants to put 
me in the abbey and raise a monument over me, she has my 
permission. Please mark a copy of the paper containing this 
article and send it to Queen Vic. The poets' corner had 
more of interest for us than the tombs of the kings and queens, 
but to tell the truth since I have seen all these latter monu- 

37 



ments at the abbey and elsewhere I have found that there 
were more kings and queens than I ever dreamed of; my ear- 
ly education was somewhat neglected in this direction. For 
a longtime I thought there were only four kings and as many 
queens, the balance of humanity consisting of aces, knaves 
and ordinary people. I know better now. I have seen 
enough dead kings and queens to make up at least a dozen 
full decks. 

But time presses, the hour for posting is at hand, and I 
must leave St. Paul's, the Crystal Palace and the theaters for 
another screed. Suffice it to say it costs a penny to open 
your mouth in London, "tup-pence " or four cents to keep 
it open. You can't get in or out of a cab, or your hotel, or 
into or out of a train or a theatre, without shedding pennies 
like a duck sheds water. At the hotel eating is a fine art 
and a matter of great patience. Breakfast (as well as lunch- 
eon and dinner) is in courses, and it takes about three hours 
to do forty minutes of good, square American eating. By 
the way, the Duchess and I are following the example ot 
Mark Twain and arranging a bill of fare we propose attack- 
ing as soon as we land in New York. We are clamoring for 
something homelike to eat, and we are bound to have it if the 
vessel takes us safely over, and standing out in the very cen- 
ter of the menu we have arranged is pie — good old American 
apple and pumpkin pie, and we want whole ones — not slices. 
— at that. 




38 



The gnuirmis nf kmtdflH. 



Of course we visited Crystal Palace. Everybody does 
so, and although it is simply what was left over from the 
great exhibition of 185 1, it is one of the places where you 
get your money's worth. The palace is of glass and iron en- 
tirely, looking like a gigantic green house. The grounds 
surrounding it are magnificently laid out with terraces, foun- 
tains, mazes, flowers and shrubbery, and toboggan slides, fly- 
ing horses, swings, and roller coasters everywhere. The 
palace is at Sydenham, about twenty-two miles out of Lon- 
don, and has been moved from its original location and en- 
tirely replaced piece for piece as it first stood. It cost orig- 
inally $7,500,000. The central hall is 1,608 feet long and 
in the exact center is the great organ and music hall, with 
seats for a chorus of 4,000 voices, as well as the accommo- 
dations for the audience. There are several other enormous 
theatres and concert halls in the building. The palace is 
really a permanent exposition, filled with exhibits of all kinds 
from different countries, with bazaars, museums, and rooms 
furnished after the various ancient and modern nations. 
The great attraction of the palace is the Thursday night fire- 
works exhibition, which draws tens of thousands of visitors. 
To describe this display would require columns of space, and 
the pen of a poet combined with the brush of a painter. 
Suffice it to say that our party felt that one hour's exhibition 
was worth crossing the ocean to see. The heavens scintil- 
lated with stars, comets and meteors of all colors, and elec- 
tric rockets made even hign noon dim. Immense bombs ex- 

39 



ploded at a mile's height and discharged great balloons of fire 
that sailed proudly away into the night's mysteries and were 
followed by countless eyes until lost in the marvelous space of 
the upper world. The piece de resistance was the Battle of the 
Nile, in which on an ocean of fire 400 feet long, a dozen 
line-of-battle ships 75 to 100 feet high moved to and fro in 
constant battle, some going down in the waves and others 
proudly floating the banner of victory as they sank their 
majestic opponents. Verily the whole exhibition seemed the 
work of others than mortals, and the applause of the multi- 
tude at times seemed to start the very earth. One of the 
odd features was a veritable boxing match by two men of fire, 
lasting for several rounds, in which knock-down blows were 
frequent and the boxing really good. This was performed 
by real men, with men acting as judges and referees, bottle 
holders, etc., they being protected by asbestos clothing, and 
the fire-works covering them and discharging their chemical 
beauties of fire, the while the fight went merrily on. If one 
wants to be taken out of this life for an hour and into a fairy 
or demon land of delight and mystery, he must visit Crystal 
Palace on a Thursday night. Another source of enjoyment 
is the wild beast entertainment given in a pavilion on the 
grounds, where a lion tamer exhibits some thirty lions, tigers, 
leopards, bears (black and white), cheetahs and dogs in an 
immense circular cage, some ninety feet in diameter. The 
beasts are magnificent specimens and perform some remark- 
able feats. The lions ride bicycles, make pyramids, etc., 
and are seemingly as tractable as the ordinary trick dogs. 
After the performance the entire lot are left together in the 
cage alone, and play with one another as pleasantly as so 
many kittens. It rather causes one to lose his respect for 
the king of beasts to see a tawny lion descend to romp for 
an hour with an ordinary, every-day dog. 

From dogs and lions I must ascend the scale to queens 
and princes. On one of our red letter days in London, we 

40 



journeyed by rail twenty-two miles through a beautiful coun- 
try to the very common little town of Windsor. Near by is 
Eton, with its college founded in 1440, and now attended by 
1,000 students. Stoke Pogis is only a few steps away. 
This is the scene of what many, besides myself, believe to be 
the finest poem in the English language, Gray's Elegy, and 
here the dust of the poet mingles with the forces of nature. 
Windsor, in itself, is famous for nothing save that Windsor 
castle is here, the home of Britain's queen. That august per- 




WINDSOR CASTLE. 



sonage being now in her Scotch castle of Bal-moral (not Balmo- 
ral), it is possible to gain entrance to Windsor. Here Will- 
iam the Conqueror built his residence, and Edward III was 
born. For two cents you can buy of the castle clerk (pro- 
nounced dark) a guide to the castle, and I willingly donated 
this sum to Victoria as I understood she was pressed for cash 
on account of having but recently settled the gambling debts 
of the Prince of Wales. I never like to see a good woman 
worried for ready money, and if my two cents will do her 
any good she is welcome to them. Of course the castle is a 
picturesque old pile, surrounding and covering twenty-two 

41 



acres of land. It seems strange to see a building erected 
centuries ago, and in as perfect a condition through and 
through as a modern job done by an American political con- 
tractor. The furnishings within are plain, but of rare rich- 
ness, and some of the pictures, vases, tapestry, etc., are 
priceless. Her majesty has recently come into possession of 
the Raphael cartoons, most of which we saw. We also got a 
look at her jubilee presents, and if the Duchess and I get as 
many when our jubilee comes we shall be perfectly content. 
From all I could learn Victoria has a first-rate job, and 
although she can't boss her country as completely as some of 
her ancestors did, she has nothing to worry about, unless it 
might be the reprehensible way the Prince of Wales has of 
running around of nights. The queen being absent, I left 
my card, the nine spot of clubs, with the boss door keeper 
and took my departure. It was the only thing I could take, 
the various articles of value being pretty well guarded. 
After leaving the castle we visited the Albert memorial chap- 
el. This was originally Wolsey's chapel, built by Henry 
VII, but redecorated and reopened in 1875. It i s one °f the 
most beautiful places I ever saw. Small in size, its stained 
glass windows, mosaics, reredos and cenotaphs, are unequalled 
in modern art. The most exquisite taste is everywhere dis- 
played, and the wealth of expressed sorrow does not take 
from one the idea of the heartache and woe that follows 
death, as is the case in some of the gaudy monuments that 
guard "the quiet children of eternity." Next to Napoleon's 
tomb in the Hotel des Invalides, the Albert chapel atWindsor 
is the most beautiful remembrancer of death I know of. The 
marble cenotaphs on which lie the the sculptured forms of 
the prince consort and son, are worthy of their surroundings. 
One comes nearer in this spot to the womanhood of Eng- 
land's gracious queen than is elsewhere possible. 

You have read so much of St. Paul's that I need only 
say it deserves all that has been said of its grandeur. Built 

42 



by Wren, 1675 to 17 10, it rises to the height of 404 feet, its 
nave being 500 feet long and transepts 118 feet. The site 
was once occupied by a temple of Diana and later by King 
Ethelbert's church, destroyed in 1666. Here, in 121 3, 
King John yielded to the pope, in 1337 Wycliffe was cited 
for heresy, and in 1527 Tyndale's New Testament was burn- 
ed. In the crypt stands the funeral car of Wellington, with 
wheels made of the bronze of his captured cannons. The 
monuments in the crypt and the body of the church are too 
many to be mentioned here, and the guide book will tell you 
to what great names they have been reared. 

There are other notable places we visited, the British- 
Kensington museums, Billingsgate market, the bridge of Lon- 
don, as well as the dozen others. We rode for miles up the 
Thames on one of those little energetic steam launches, 
stopping at Chelsea, where the sailor's hospital is, and several 
of the theatres. 

But there was more than enough for the Duchess and me 
in the streets of this modern Babylon. The costermongers 
and the dudes gave us many a laugh. The fellow with the 
single eye-glass and his ugly face all screwed into the symp- 
toms of an apoplectic stroke in his endeavors to keep the 
glass in place, I wanted to kill. I don't believe it would be 
a serious offense. But the one person against whom my 
anger rises to greatest height is a dear old soul, fair, fat and 
sixty, who has fastened herself upon our party, and sticks 
closer than a porus-plaster I paid a shilling for in Edinboro, 
and would give a pound to get it off from its lodging place on 
my chest. She is trying to mourn the loss of her husband, 
and there isn't a soul in our party, or a tradesman in Lon- 
don, who doesn't know all about her late lamented, the num- 
ber of real teeth he had, the various complaints he suffered 
with, and his political and religious opinions. She retails 
and wholesales information of this character on every occas- 
ion. She is seriously trying to mourn his departure, but she 

43 



is one of these great three hundred pounders, as full of fun 
and good nature as she is of information and curiosity, and 
breaks right off in the middle of a good cry to ask a fool 
question, and that's what I want to kill her for. I can stand 
real grief, and I can stand curious questioning, but I don't 
want them mixed. 

We start with a conductor according to our regular pro- 
gram to visit Westminster or St. Paul's. All the day before 
we talk about it and all the way there. At last it rises before 
us — we enter — we are within. And then comes that dear 
old soul, fair, fat and sixty, and with just breath enough left 
to cry out, "Why! what's this?" 

If you read of a fat woman found dead in Italy, don't 
give it away, but you and I will know who did it. 




44 



The Iknutirs of gurxrpe. 



Just as I had learned to speak French with the ease and 
fluency of a cow, we left Paris and entered Switzerland and 
Italy. I had acquired such perfect command of the lan- 
guage that I could say three or four words at once, the only 
drawback being that no one but myself could understand 
them. It is not true, however, that I tried to order pate de 




CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME. "PARIS. 



foie gras at the hotel and got a toothpick. I really needed a 
toothpick. But outside of the poor French they use there, 
Paris is a great city. If you think I am going to attempt a 
description of it you are badly mistaken. One would want 
a day of absolute rest and half the space of a great newspaper 
to deal even superficially with the many beauries of this won- 
derful city. The Louvre itself, with its Venus de Milo and 

45 



Murillo's Immaculate Conception, as pieces de resistance, to 
say nothing of its whole gallery of Rubens, would deserve 
columns. The building itself, standing opposite the site of 
the Tuilleries and Arc de Triomphe, with the Place de la 
Concorde (where Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette and 
husband, Louis XVI and others were executed from 1793 to 
1795,) is sufficient food for study and reflection to keep one 
busy for days. Then there are the columns Vendome and 
July; Versailles, Trianon and their palaces, parks and foun- 
tains, St. Cloud and its ruins, Sevres and its porcelain, the 
Gobelins tapestry manufactory, the Buttes Chaumont; Notre 
Dame, with its beggars without and its untold wealth of gold, 
silver and diamonds within, the crown of thorns and piece of 
the real cross (?) ; the Madeleine church ; the jewel chapel 
of La Chapelle, thirteenth century, but with beauty of glass 
and sculpture and gilding that to-day's artists cannot hope to 
rival; the Bois de Boulogne, the Champs Elysees, the modern 
Eiffel tower, the Grand Opera, we saw them all, together 
with the Palais Royal, and the miles of palaces and stores 
unequalled anywhere. But life and space are too short, too 
valuable to tell of them in detaiL 

One understands now why the Frenchman in America 
speaks of Paris with tears in his eyes. There is but one 
Paris, and every Frenchman loves it as though it were a 
sacred spot, more than simply a place of beauty and delight. 
But of all things seen there, we shall longest remember the 
tomb of Napoleon. It lies in an open circular crypt in the 
chapel attached to the Hotel des Invalides, (a soldiers' home) 
and under a dome grander than that at the capitol at Wash- 
ington. I shall not attempt a description, but one may have 
some idea of its greatness in the fact that the gilding on the 
dome cost $400,000. The French republic has even renam- 
ed its streets that smacked of the days of the empire, and the 
people are in charge even as with us, but while the tri-color 



46 



waves on every corner, Napoleon's is still a name to con- 
jure with. 

Much of Parisian life is out of doors, the boulevards 
being lined with cafes which do nine-tenths of their business 
by selling eatables and drinkables on the pavements without, 
half of the walk being taken up with the tables and chairs. 
If I ever get time and money enough I am going to come to 







3 ..lu-l- 



CHURCH OF THE INVALIDES. 

NAPOLEON'S TOMB, 



Paris and live in it long enough to take in all its beauties and 
wonders. One cannot walk ten minutes in any direction 
without seeing more of interest, excitement and beauty than 
can be seen in a whole Sunday at Edgewood. 

We left Paris Saturday night and arrived the next morn- 
ing in Geneva, Switzerland, stopping at the Hotel D'Angle- 

47 



terre, on the borders of the lake and facing Mt. Blanc, fifty 
miles away, but rising white and majestic in full sight. From 
our departure from Paris till our return to English soil our 
troubles of language are ended. We are a party of seventeen 
genuine Americans, and have gotten an accomplished cou- 
rier who will accompany us the whole way, and who talks all 
the modern languages, besides being perfectly familiar with 
all the architectural and art wonders of the continent. He 
makes all the contracts, pays all the bills, fees, etc., and 
arranges our program of sight seeing, so that we save time, 
patience and money. In our party are two preachers, one 
young hotel keeper, a doctor, the old woman mentioned 
before, and her companion, and another old woman who 
claims to be young. She told the hotel keeper in a moment 
of confidence that she had seen twenty-six summers, and in 
a moment of surprise he said, "Great thunder! How many 
summers were you blind?" We also have an old maid con- 
nected with an art museum in Boston, and she has no eyes 
for anything but old masters. If a picture is only old enough, 
she will give up all other sights that she may stand before it 
in rapt adoration. The old fat woman we call Sortie, now. 
As we stopped at a French station some one asked what 
it was, and she seeing the word over the exit, replied that 
it was the old French town of Sortie. Bless her dear old 
soul, I really fear much learning will drive her mad. Her 
companion, however, is driving us all mad. She has the 
largest stock of misinformation I ever saw. Having read 
history after the fashion of the average boarding school miss, 
she has all the names and dates that have been memorable 
since the creation, but so far she hasn't got one of them into 
the right place. She mixes Alexander, George IV and 
Ccesar indiscriminately and I really fear she belives the crea- 
tion came after the Renaissance. The courier is already 
getting gray, and one of the preachers shows signs of falling 
from grace. If he does I'll try and give him a boost back again, 

48 



but the next time she tells me that Raphael did part of the fres- 
coes in the dome of the Capital at Washington, I'll kill her. 
She has been very quiet this evening. At the luncheon table 
she told of having seen a great actress in several of her char- 
acters, and following her description of the dramatic queen, the 
courier gave the date of her death, and as this happened 
about as many years ago as the old maid claims to have lived, 
she recognized the fact that, in the expressive slang of the 
American, she "had given herself away." They are both of 
them at present performing the peculiar comedy of "We 
never speak as we pass by." 




THE CASTLE OF CHILLON, 

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND. 



But Geneva is beautiful, notwithstanding. The Alps in 
front and the Jura range behind, with the jewel of a lake set 
between, lined with palaces and quaint Swiss villages, is a 
picture to dream of. We passed a day on the lake and visit- 
ed the old castle of Chillon, seeing the post to which Bonnr 
vard was chained for six years, the oi/btiet down which prison- 
ers were told to walk four steps into freedom, and on leaving 
the third step fell a hundred feet to death upon upraised 
spears. The shaft is there and the three steps, and around 

49 






- 

the castle wall hang the old implements of torture. Sunday 
we visited the old church where Calvin preached, and I sat 
in his chair, but I don't think I took in much Presbyterianism 
that way, for that same night I went to a concert in the 
Kursaal, adjoining the hotel. The music was good, vocal 
and instrumental, but after a while they brought on a ballet, 
and the girls didn't have enough clothes on them to wad a 
shot-gun and my Presbyterianism rose at once and I went 
home to bed. The Duchess insisted upon it and she and 
Calvin prevailed. 

From Geneva we went to Turin, Italy, a beautiful city, 
where we slept in an old palace with marble floors and furni. 
ture and hangings more royal than anything in American 
hotels. Most of the hotels in Italy are old palaces bought for 
a song or leased from impoverished nobles, with all their 
furniture and belongings. The service is of the best, the meals 
most excellent; paintings, frescoes and tapestry confront us 
at every turn, and all this elegance costs about $2 per day. 
Such beds, toilet equipments and service I have never found 
in America. In one hotel our furniture was of gilt in yellow 
satin, and the bed hung about as if for the reception of royal 
heads, but the Duchess and myself are getting so used to 
such things that they no longer excite our wonder. Turin is 
beautifully situated on the Po, and has a magnificently fur- 
nished palace, finer than Windsor in England, and the finest 
museum of armor of all ages, in the world. 

From Turin we went to Genoa, the home of Columbus, 
where we lived in another palace and walked on floors of 
mosaic. Our hotel adjoined a noble monument which has 
on its crest a colossal figure of Columbus, with an Indian 
princess at his feet. Genoa is set on terraced hills command- 
ing a beautiful view of the Mediterranian ocean and is a city 
full of palaces. The city hall, as we would call it, rich in 
paintings, statues and frescoes, has in it the letters of 
Columbus, and Paganini's violin. Since an American woman 

5° 



store off a corner of one of the letters only photographic copie 
are shown. Mark Twain to the contrary notwithstanding, old 
Chi is wrote a pretty good hand. 

The railroads of Switzerland and Italy are wonders of 
engineering skill. The Mont Cenis tunnel on the border 
between France and Switzerland tunnels the Alps for eight 
miles, while from there to Pisa, tunnels are as thick as black- 
berries. In 1 20 miles there are 126 tunnels, some of a mile 
or more in length, and one of five miles. The amount of 
time and money consumed in the making of these roads is 




OUR HOTEL AT GENOA, 

AND STATUTE OF COLUMBUS. 



incalculable. Human life is considered in these countries to 
a greater extent than at home. Gates and keepers are at 
every road crossing. The trains make good time and in Italy 
have conveniences such as are found in America. One is 
only bothered for tickets on leaving the depot where the train 
is left, and the conductor and newsboy are things unknown. 
The German, French and Italian papers speak of the terrible 
railroad accident at Bale recently, as a regular American 
disaster. 

5» 



From Genoa we went to Pisa. I suppose the leaning 
tower there has had a firmer hold on the minds of most people 
than any other European sight. It was pictured in our school 
books, and wondered over from the days of childhood. It 
comes into view from the narrow street leading from the 
Arno, just as we remembered it in the pictures. There is 
nothing disappointing about it. Eight stories, with thirty 
grand columns around each one, it rises 189 feet high, 
and is fourteen feet out of the perpendicular. From its 
top, where the Duchess and I climbed of course, one sees 
the Appenines, the coast, Elba, and Corsica, — the latter 
the birthplace — the former the place of exile of Napoleon. 
Here Galileo studied the heavens, and the lamp from which 
he discovered the secret of the measurement of time, hangs 
in the cathedral seventy-five feet from the tower, and I 
set it swinging with a touch of the finger, and an hour 
later found it vibrating still. The cathedral and Baptistery 
which are on the same square as the tower, are both wonder- 
ful sights, but my pen refuses to give simple measurements 
of distances, and cannot describe the beauties of such places. 
The baptistery is said to be the finest in the world. It is 
higher than the tower, and is in the Roman-Tuscan and 
Gothic styles. The font within is a marvelous piece of 
sculpture, as is also the six-sided pulpit along side, the work 
of Niccola Pisana. The echo here is the most remarkable 
known, the tones of the voice coming back with the rise and 
swell of a great organ. 

The Campo Santo, or holy field near by, is filled with 
earth brought from Calvary and consecrated to the burial of 
great men. The cloistered hall surrounding it was built in 
1278-83, is 424 feet long, with sixty-two beautiful windows 
opening on the green court. The walls are decorated with 
fourteenth century frescoes of early Bible history and The 
Triumph of Death, some of them attributed to Giotto. Here lie 
the remains of emperors, popes, and warriors, Luca della Rob 

52 



bia, Thorwaldsen, and Catalani. The monuments are ancient, 
many of them having been taken from ancient cities and used 
either the second time, or brought here merely as curiosities. 
The most beautiful place of sepulture in the world, how- 
ever, seems to me to be the Campo Santo, of Genoa. Here 
in long halls are modern monuments by the hundred, some 
of them being marvels of workmanship and design, yet not 
all of them in good taste. It is touching to see a mother 
lifting up the child to kiss the lips of the dead father, all the 




LEANING TOWER, BAPTISTERY AND DUO M O." PISA 

forms being life-sized and the faces perfect copies, but it is 
not artistic. Many of the tombs, however, are purely artistic, 
and a vast number of such striking works of modern sculpture 
makes a picture one would not want to forget. 

En route from Genoa to Pisa we passed Carrara with 
its quarries of pure marble, where 6,000 men are at work. 
These quarries are in the mountains, which for a stretch of 20 
miles are solid marble, covered simply with moss, save where 

53 



the hand of man has for centuries been engaged, and from 
these places comes a long gleam of white (simply the exposed 
marble), that in the distance we believed to be snow. In 
these mountains alone Italy has marble enough for the world 
for thousands of years to come. It is no wonder that every 
house here is of stone and many of marble, yet inhabited by 
the poorer people, many of whom herd together in palaces 
that once echoed to the tread of rulers. 

Italy is the land of art, song, great churches, grand views, 
delicate fruits and pernicious beggars. If you throw a stone 
out of a window, ten to one it hits a beggar. They line your 
way from the station to the hotel, from the hotel to every 
church door, and thus follow you up to the time of your de- 
parture. They never get angry at your refusal, but will run 
smilingly along side your carriage for a mile, and then if you 
give them nothing will go off smiling. Many, especially 
about the churches, are lame or blind, but the ordinary beg- 
gar is singularly lazy. Again it seems to be expected that 
the tourist is willing to shed coppers like a duck sheds water, 
and we have seen boys stop work or play on sight of us, and 
come whining for alms. If refused, they put back their 
ordinary smiling faces and go back singing to the task or 
game left off. Fruit here is delicious and cheap. For four 
cents we get three pints of cherries, such as we cannot get at 
home, and strawberries, large and luscious, for about six 
cents a quart. We buy these in large quantities and carry 
them on all our journeys, and could even stand poor meals 
with good bread and such fruit. But we get no poor meals 
in our hotels. They are far better than we would have at 
home for the same money, and I have yet to find poor bread, 
poor butter, or badly cooked meats in Europe. I object to 
taking an hour and a half to a meal, but the fact that the 
meal is a good one is something gained. But this is a long 
letter, the skies are bright above us, and the carriages are at 
the door — we are off for Rome. 

54 



hi The gteructl dttg. 



It is hard to think, speak or write coherently of the Eter- 
nal city. One feels as if there was but a step between this 
place and the original garden where our gardener forefather 
and his economical and great hearted wife first took upon 
themselves the task and duty of living. It is like getting back 
to the beginning of things. Ride down one of the modern 
streets, with factories, warehouses, stores and residences on 
each side, just such blocks as you have seen in Cincinnati, 
New York or other American cities, and then try if you can 
to intelligently absorb the fact that this same city was founded 
seven and a half centuries before Christ, by Romulus and 
Remus, those mystic children whom even the fates could not 
prevail against; babes suckled of the wolf and so made strong 
for conquest. After two hundred years this to-be mistress 
of the world expelled King Tarquin, and for nearly five cen- 
turies the republic lasted — the citizens of freedom conquering 
the Etruscans, Samnites, Gauls, Turcomans and other people. 
Then came the wars with Carthage and the conquest of Cor- 
sica, Sicily, Spain, Greece, Pergamus, Provence and Gaul, 
and Augustus Caesar became emperor, and the Christ-man 
was not yet come. 

And today alongside the last new block of nineteenth cen- 
tury stores, stand the walls of some great palace or church or 
bath that was aged and gray with time when that same Au- 
gustus Caesar sat enthroned in state. One does not often 
see a finer railway station than the one at Rome, yet directly 
opposite it are the ruins of the baths of Diocletian, 6,000 feet 
around, and with accommodations, (in those earlier days when 

55 



Romans were more cleanly than they seem to be at present,) 
for 3,000 bathers daily. These baths were built in the fourth 
century by enslaved Christians, and some idea of their size 
may be gained from the fact that one of the great vaulted 
halls in 1561 was made into a church, still in use, which is 
350 feet long and 90 feet high. Here can be seen as fresh 
as if the artist's work was but finished yesterday, Domeni- 
chino's wonderful frescoes, as well as Houdon's statue of St. 
Bruno, and the tombs of Salvator Rosa and Carlo Maratti. 



'S ::::::' V . : 




THE ROMAN FORUM. 



Other halls of the bath are used for military store houses, and 
part for a monastery. Near by, in the very yards of the 
railway company, are a part of the original walls of Rome, 
1,600 years old, and which were originally fifty-five feet high 
and fourteen miles around. Twelve of the old gates are still 
in use, and today, as in that elder day, soldiers stand by 
them. Not, however, to keep the enemy at bay, but simply 

56 



as excise officers to examine each cart and carriage, and see 
that nothing enters the city until the tax is paid. 

Stretching for many miles outside of Rome over the 
Campagna are the vast arcades of the acqueducts — the Aqua 
Mania, still bringing water to the city from the Sabine moun- 
tains, 56 miles away. Yet this same acqueduct was built 
156 years before the birth of the Bethlehem babe. The Aqua 
Virgo, built by Agrippa for his baths, breaks out in a great 
gush of finest water from the Fountain of Trevi, only a stone's 
throw from our hotel. Those ancient builders evidently did 
not get their contracts through political scheming or else they 
did better work for their political bosses than our contractors 
for public institutions do at the present time. 

Walk a bit with me from this same Fountain of Trevi. 
That dry goods store yonder is as modern as the one good- 
natured Tom Howell presides over in our own city; that fruit 
stand next door looks for all the world like Phil Rothenbush's 
place, and there is one on the corner opposite, with a man 
at the door who looks like Ratliff, up at the corner of Third 
and High. Yet while the nineteenth century is all around 
us, slip down this alley with me -mind your steps — we are 
twenty feet below the level of the city of today, and history 
is all around us. Just yonder Virginius saved his daughters 
honor with the knife he had hastily filched from the butch- 
er's block, and then when she fell dead at his feet, made his 
way through the crowd and took horse to tell of the deeds 
that were done in Rome. Here is where the faithful Antony 
made his memorable speech over the dead Caesar; where he 
shook out the blood stained mantle, and with eulogy too great 
for such a man as Caesar, with sarcasm keener than Casca's 
"envious blade" made the populace thirst for blood. Over 
yonder Cicero has spoken. In the center is where that fabled 
chasm yawned into which full armed rode Marcus Curtius, 
flower of Roman youth, that ruin might be averted. Here 
still stands three Parian marble columns, all that remains of 

57 



the temple of Castor and Pollux, built 484 years before Christ. 
In those rooms the Vestal virgins slept; here is a part of the 
Temple of Saturn, and all about here the Sabines and Ro- 
mans fought. Above us to the right are the ruins of the 
palace of the Caesars and a moment's walk shows us the Tar- 
peian rock. Wonderfully interesting are all these things, and 
more than passing strange. Centuries have brought new 
sights and wonders, but here are things that almost came in 
with time, and column and arch and statue are as fine as 




THE APPIAN WAY. 



work of yesterday. Another walk of three minutes down the 
sacred way and Rome's chief marvel rises in its matchless 
beauty, Vespasian's Colosseum. Jewish captives finished this 
wonder, A. D. 80, and they had a more than royal time when 
the last stone was in place. I think Titus had succeeded 
Vespasian before the inauguration. Anyhow the celebration, 
from a heathen standpoint was made fit for such a building. 
One hundred thousand people found sitting room around the 
various tiers, and for all I know they attended regularly dur- 
ing the whole 100 days, and in that time 10,000 men and 
half as many beasts were slain. It makes one's blood boil 

58 



to recall the history of the place, and the times of its use, 
but for all that it is perhaps the most beautiful ruin in the 
world, and especially so by moonlight. It is in the shape of 
an ellipse, one-third of a mile around, 156 feet high, and 
with an arena 279 by 174 feet, which could be flooded for 
naval combats. The beasts were kept in stone dungeons be- 
neath the arena, and the marks in the stone division wall of 
the ropes by which they were dragged up to make a meal 




THE COLOSSEUM. 



upon Christian flesh are still to be seen. 

But to tell of all the wonderful things of the olden time 
still standing in Rome is not my purpose. The city is unlike 
any other in the world because of the odd manner in which 
the old and the new are thrown together. Here stands an 
arch antedating the birth of Christianity, and alongside it are 

59 



the works of the electric light company. Yonder are the 
Baths of Caracalla, and the stables of the street car company 
are across the way. Here is the roughest kind of a grog- 
shop outside the gates, and burly teamsters are squabbling 
over their cups, and yet next door is a little church built on 
the spot where Paul and Peter met. In another direction we 
see the round tomb celebrated by Rogers in his poem "Only 
a Woman's Grave," the tomb of Caecilia Metella, and be- 
yond here the brethren met St. Paul when he came to Rome 
to preach the word. In this direction rises the rude pyramid 
that stands for the tomb of Cestius, 116 feet high, and base 
98 feet square, brick, covered with marble, and in its center 
thirty years before Christ, was placed the body of the tribune 
Caius Cestius. But what care we for Cestius? The shadow 
of his tomb falls today beside me as I stand with more of 
reverence by the plain marble stone that reads so sadly: 
This grave 
contains all that was mortal 
of a 
young English poet, 
who 
on his death bed 
in the bitterness of his heart, 
at the malicious power of his enemies, 
desired 
these words to be engraved on 
his tombstone : 
" Here lies one 
whose name was writ in water." 
Feb. 24, 1821. 
And alongside this another stone speaks out in triumph 
for that. other one of the soul-sick poet, reading ; 
Also Joseph Severn, 
Devoted friend and death-bed companion 
of 
John Keats, 
whom he lived to see numbered 
among the immortal poets of England. 

60 



Who knows what Cestius did to make him worthy of a 
tomb ? We simply look at his pyramid because it is a pyra- 
mid, but a tear steals down the cheek as plucking a flower 
from his grave we go sadly into the Protestant cemetery a few 
steps away, thanking God that while enemies might wound 
to the death the great heart of a Keats, they had no power 
over his song. "He sang not for a season, but for all time." 
Just one tomb detains us in the cemetery, a stone lying flat 
upon the earth, reading: 

Percy Bysshe Shelley ; 

Cor Cordum 

Natus IV Aug. MDCCXCII 

Obit VIII Jul. MDCCCXXII 

' Nothing of him that doth fade, 

But doth suffer a sea change 

Into something rich and strange." 

Poor Shelley ! Only thirty when he was drowned near 
Pisa, after that strange Italian life with Byron and Mary — 
that strange woman whom poets loved and who loved poets. 
Future years and higher living could have made an ethereal- 
ized Shakespeare out of Shelley, but the fates forbade. Who 
can read their purposes ? His heart lies here in Rome. His 
body was burnt by Byron on the coast where found. Which 
was the happier in death I wonder; Shelley or his purer 
neighbor, Keats? 

But this is not the place for moralizing nor the time for 
further scribbling. A great high bed, soft as down, stands 
invitingly near by. The Duchess already wanders in dream- 
land. The singers in the street have hushed their song, and 
I remember that Rome was not built in a day; and so con- 
cluding that I cannot tell all about it in a column, I shall 
draw the line right here and finish the Eternal City in my 
next. 



i,i 



Thx ^ncieut Olttg af 3iame. 



The modern Roman is not altogether like his ancestors 
of Cagsar's time. "In that day to be a Roman was greater 
than a king," if we are to believe Miss Mitford's Rienzi, of 
whom we used to "elocute" in school-boy days. But the 
Romans of this day are not kingly. The present monarch, 
Victor Emanuel II, I did not see, as I forgot to acquaint him 
with the fact that I was going to stay at Rome, and so he did 
not call upon me; but in one of his many palaces I saw a fine 
painting of his majesty, and if policeman John Riley, he of 
the immense mustache, should put on some gold shoulder 
straps, wear a medal or two and look fierce, and could come 
over here to Italy, the whole populace would accept him as 
Vicky the Two-Times. If Johnny gets busted, all he has to 
do is to come over here to Italy and play king. Some of the 
Romans here are not bad looking fellows, but it would be 
hard to imagine the mass of them as attempting the deeds of 
the earlier Romans. One can imagine them making a united 
attack upon a party of tourists for begging purposes, but as 
to conquering other nations, or building colosseums or tri- 
umphal arches, such as stand to the credit of the earlier Ro- 
mans, they would hardly be in it. But give them a chance. 
They have changed the rule of the church for the rule of the 
state, and there is vast chance for improvement. It is to be 
hoped they will avail themselves of it, and, if possible, I wish 
they would get some later Diocletian or Agrippa to teach 
them the purpose of the bath. 

What places of interest there are in Rome. Here are 
the stairs of Pilate's house, on which the Christ walked, 

62 



brought here centuries ago, and a church built over them. 
Since then no foot has touched them, yet they are so worn 
that it has been found necessary to cover them with perfora- 
ted boards, and up these boards, as formerly up the stone 
stairs, the faithful climb on their knees and win absolution 
for»the past and a year's protection from the saints. 

We saw the faithful at their task, and while it seemed 
all wrong to us, we recognized their sincerity, and the spirit 
of sacrifice that moved them, and felt that they were facing 




GATE OF ST. PAUL. — ROME. 

PYRAMIDAL TOMB OF C A) U S C EST I US. 



the throne of the merciful one as they journeyed painfully up. 
It is not the form, but the faith in it, that makes the 
worship true. 

Then here is the Mamertine prison, and in its lowest 
dungeon a well, deep in the earth, curbed round with stone. 
Not a great sight to be sure — with the rude stone pillar a few 
feet away, yet it is believed by many students of the olden 
history of Rome, and accepted by all the faithful, that St. 
Paul was bound to this pillar, and in the water of this well 
he baptized the jailer who asked the way of salvation. Not 

63 



far from here on a small hill another church stands, over 
the spot where it is claimed Peter was crucified, and they 
not only show you the hole in which the crucifix stood, but 
will bring you a bit of the sand in which the base of the cru- 
cifix was placed, and you may give the good priest what you 
choose therefor and believe as much or as little of the story 
as you please. There is much doubt as to whether Peter 
was ever in Rome, but the church of St. Pietro in Vincoli, 
built in 442, contains in a casket of gold the chains that are 
supposed to have- bound the apostle. Here also is Michael 
Angelo's great statue of Moses, worth a long journey to see. 
But Rome has churches enough to convert all Italy, and 
to refer to them but briefly would demand all your space. 
St. Mary Maggiore is interesting, not because it holds the 
cradle manger of Christ, or a painting of the Madonna by St. 
Luke, as also the remains of St. Matthew, but because it is 
decorated with the first gold brought from America, and 
which was presented to the Pope by Ferdinand and Isabella. 
But all these churches, as all the churches of the world be- 
side, fall into insignificance before St. Peter's. No wonder 
the Catholic people hold fast to a religion which gives them 
places of worship that outshine in grandeur and beauty all 
the palaces of the earth. The meanest church one sees in 
Italy has inside its walls a wealth of beauty in various forms 
of art, that in itself is divine enough to command the spirit 
of worship. One may joke as he pleases of "the old mas- 
ters," but on the walls of many churches in this country are 
many Madonnas by these old kings of art that represent not 
only all that is motherly in woman, but all that is divine as 
well. I have seen a Madonna by Sasso Ferrato that cried 
out to me of the beauties of holiness as no human voice could 
ever do. And every church has pictures by the score, and 
hardly one of the lot but is worth more than all the can- 
vasses hung at the great expositions in Cincinnati. It is true 
one gets tired of the repetitions of the same subject so often, 

64 



all but that sweetest subject ever chosen by painter — the 
Mother and the Child. I have great sympathy and respect 
for St. Sebastian, but I am terribly tired of his arrows. He 
really seems to me to be proud of them, and all over Europe 
he is to be found exposing his arrow ridden peison, and look- 
ing as if he were saying to each beholder, " Go thou and do 
likewise." He'll have to excuse yours truly. Another cheer- 
ful saint is St. Bartholomew. It was his misfortune to be 
•flayed alive; and after that excruciating ordeal he fell into the 
habit of going around wearing his shed skin like an old Ro- 
man used to wear his toga, thrown carelessly over his shoul- 
der and arm, and in that condition preaching to the people. 
I can't swear to the truth of this, but the good saint is to be 
found all over Europe on canvass and in stone, wearing his 
epidermis loose and lifting up his voice in exhortation. In 
the cathedral at Milan, that wondrous church of a thousand 
spires and six thousand statues, is a fine piece of sculpture 
representing St. Bartholomew, and the sculptor or the author- 
ities of the church, lest honor or fault be unjustly applied, 
have taken pains to inscribe on the pedestal the fact that the 
statue was not sculptured by Praxiteles. Why such an an- 
nouncement is necessary passes my power of understanding. 

St. Lawrence is another one of the cheerful brotherhood. 
It was his misfortune to be roasted on a gridiron, and he is 
to be seen in half the churches of the continent undergoing 
his martyrdom. Sometimes he seems to be suffering consid- 
erably, and at others as if he never had such a treat in his 
life. For real downright enjoyment and pleasant dreams I 
commend a four weeks' inspection of the representation in 
color and in stone of these three martyrs. 

But "to return to my mutton-chop," as a young trans- 
lator of the party expresses a well known French phrase 
apropos of a return to a subject one has wandered from. 
The church of St. Peter is the greatest church in the world. 
It was built by Constantine, A. D. 326, on the site of Nero's 

6< 



circus. I may say here en passant, that Nero's was a one- 
ringed circus, and the menagerie was not shown in a separate 
tent. Whether there was a concert after the circus I can't 
say, but from all I have been able to learn, it was a very 
celebrated circus and worthy of this late puffin your columns. 
The present church was built from 1450 to 1626, Raphael 
and Michael Angelo being among the architects. It cost 
over $60,000,000 in those early days of slave labor, and its 




y<mm 






CHURCH OF ST. PETER. 



building lasted during the reigns of twenty-eight popes. It 
covers 240,000 square feet, and is the largest as well as the 
finest church in the world. The effect from the outside is 
not so great as from the inside, due to the peculiar construc- 
tion of the dome, which does not show from the circle 
without the church, known as Piazzo di St. Pietro. But when 



66 



one gets on the Janiculum hill, or any of the heights about 
Rome, then the dome rises up in its majesty, grander and 
more magnificent than anything else in the world in that line. 
But when one steps inside the church, the wonder begins to 
grow upon him. The total length is 696 feet, more than one- 
eighth of a mile. The length of the nave is 619 feet with 
a width of 88 feet, and height of 153, (the height of the 
dome and cross being 470 feet, with a diameter of 141 feet); 
the transept is 450 feet long. In the center, under the dome 
is the magnificent high altar over the tomb of St. Peter, 
which is appoached by marble stairs and surrounded by 112 
ever burning lamps. The wooden throne of St. Peter, en- 
cased in gold, stands at the further end, under a canopy of 
bronze from the Pantheon, 95 feet high, made by Bernini 
in 1633. 

The church has 36 altars, 148 columns, mostly from the 
ruins of ancient Rome, and of course a few columns from the 
Mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, and two or three 
from Solomon's Temple. It is a pretty poor Italian church 
that has not a supply of columns from these two place. 137 
popes are buried here, as also Maria Sobieski, several Stuart 
princes, Palestrina, and Christina of Sweden. To describe 
the many monuments, mosaics, frescoes and statues is the 
work of Ruskin, and the exigencies of time and space forbid. 

One must look closely to comprehend the magnitude of 
the place. Not far from the door of entrance are some mar- 
ble cupids about the fonts of holy water. They seem small 
enough from the entrance, but they are larger than a full 
grown man. 

The people around the altar in the center seem like 
babies from the doorway. Standing with them, look up into 
the center of the dome. You see only a mass of color, but 
examine with your glass — you find the mass of color resolves 
itself into a majestic mosaic of God, so forceful in its compo- 
sition that you are held in the very spirit of reverent worship. 

67 



You may see St. Peter's again and again, and there will 
always be something new, and at each visit more and more 
of the wondrous beauty and majesty of the church takes 
possession of you. We attended mass on Sabbath there and 
heard the singing of the choir. There was a tenor and a 
male soprano there whose voices are sweeter than any we 
have ever heard elsewhere. How these tones of praise rung 
through those wondrous heights ; it was like the service of 
gods on some wondrous mountain height — up where the 
thunders and the eagles play. There seemed to be some- 
thing in the service not of earth or mortality, but of some- 
thing above and beyond both. 

Of the Vatican adjoining the church I have nothing to 
say. It is said to have 11,000 rooms, but as we were press- 
ed for time we only visited 10,876 and took the rest for 
granted. It is in the Vatican the pope has remained ever 
since his elevation, as it is said it would not be safe for him 
to be outside its walls. Immediately outside the walls sol- 
diers of the state keep up a perpetual march — not to keep the 
pope a prisoner, but to enforce upon the Catholic minds the 
fact that all of Rome and Italy is under the rule of the em- 
peror and the state, and no longer that of the church — the 
pope. The latter may exact tribute from the faithful within 
the walls of St. Peter and the Vatican, but outside Victor 
Emanuel II is the sovereign. The royal staircase leading to 
the Sistine chapel is a wonderfully beautiful piece of work, 
and in the chapel is to be seen Michael Angelo's ceiling 
frescoes of the Creation, Fall, Deluge, etc., and on the altar 
wall his terrible and incomparable Last Judgment. There 
are in the Vatican four rooms frescoed by Raphael, and 
pictures by that master (including his beautiful Transfigura- 
tion and Madonna.) Leonardo de Vinci, Titian, Murillo, 
Domenichino, Guido, Fra Angelico, and the other world- 
famed names are found in wonderful profusion. Here also 
are found the Laocoon, Apollo Belvedere, Canova's Perseus, 

68 



Juno, Minerva, Mercury, Torso, Eros and the Vatican's 
Venus. The wealth of these two buildings is simply beyond 
me to compute. While you are trying to estimate it I will 
busy myself with my next letter, which will be concerning 
Naples, Vesuvius, Pompeii and sights and scenes and inci- 
dents thereunto appertaining. 




CEMETERY OF THE CAPUCHIN MONKS, 
IN CHURCH OF CAPPUCCINI. 



6 9 



The (Eitg af -Naples. 



This city, with a population of 512,000 souls, lies 162 
miles southwest of Rome. It is the Greek Parthenope and 
as such dates from 1056 B. C. Poets have raved over it for 
centuries, because of its beauty of situation, an ancient 
writer calling it, " un pezzo del cielo caduto in terra" — a bit of 
heaven let down to earth. The well known " Vcdi Napoli 
e poi mori" — " See Naples, and then die," is of course familiar ' 
to all, but I can't see why one should die after seeing Naples, 
unless it be of the dirt, for it is unquestionably the dirtiest, 
foulest place in the world. It is not Naples that is beautiful 
but its surroundings. The bay has the curve of beauty 
across it rises Vesuvius with its cap of smoke, beyond is the 
coast of Castellammare and Sorrento, and in the center of the 
bay the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida, all of which were 
originally settled by the Greeks. The water front of Naples 
is decidedly picturesque, three forts on immense rocks com- 
manding the entrance to the harbors. Castle St. Elmo on 
the west, is built on the summit of a rock 820 feet high, while 
castle DelPOvo (the egg) is at almost as great an altitude. 
These forts are centuries old, and gray with their years add a 
peculiarly effective touch to the picture. Back of the bay filled 
with queer crafts of all shapes and sizes, rise the houses of the 
lower part of the city. Some of these are 100 feet high, 
abutting on streets hardly wide enough for a single team, 
and above these rise great mountains of rock, which have 
been cut into for other streets with scores of oddly shaped 

70 



houses, inhabited in all the lower parts of the city by the 
poorer people. 

Through the city runs the Toledo or principal street, 
which is about the only part of Naples, outside of its situa- 
tion, which is fair to look upon. Bright stores are on either 
hand, while a couple of blocks from the bay is the public 
square with the royal palace on one side and the church of 
the Gesu Nuovo, a minature St. Peter's of Rome, on the 




NAPLES AND VESUVIUS. 

other. Two blocks above this is the Gallerie Victor Eman- 
uel, a great arcade full of the principal stores of the city, and 
where the people congregate at night. It is a splendid piece 
of work, the dome rising to the height of nearly 200 feet, 
and the four passages beneath, each 100 feet wide exclusive 
of the stores on either side, afford room for many promenaders. 

71 



Those galleries or arcades are a feature of the principal Ital- 
ian cities, and most of them have been built in honor of the 
present king and the unification of Italy. 

Coleridge's quatrain on the smells of Cologne is entirely 
too mild for the smells of Naples. There are more bad 
smells here to the square inch than can be found to windward 
of Ivorydale, or of Si Keek's celebrated dissecting factory at 
Brighton. If you want to lose all interest in an approaching 
meal just walk along the water front, where the fishsellers 
and the fruit and vegetable peddlers mostly do congregate. 
It would take all the breezes from Araby the Blest to purify 
the air for an instant. And those lower Neapolitans are so 
villainously dirty ; with such grand facilities for bathing and 
washing it is a wonder they have never yet been converted 
to that gospel of cleanliness which is so close to godliness. 
In no other Italian city are beggars so thick and peddlers so 
persistent. One of the latter tried for three days to sell me 
a " fine comb," and to save my life at the time I could not 
understand why he and his kind had nothing but " fine 
combs" to sell, but it is all clear now. After three days in 
Naples a bald-headed man has need for a fine-tooth comb. 
I think a wooden Indian would need one. There seems to 
be a certain hour of the day when all the people of Naples 
perform the rite of the fine toothed comb. We drove from 
4 to 5 one evening through the environs of the city and the 
water front, and as sure as my head itches yet, ( simply sym- 
pathetic) for five long miles, in front of each store and resi- 
dence we saw the mothers and nurses busily engaged in 
searching the heads of the youngsters in their charge and 
ever and anon stopping to massacre a small something, the 
discovery of which gave them one and all the greatest enjoy- 
ment. If a woman had an unusually good haul she told the 
news in joyous strains to her neighbors across the way, and 
received their congratulations in a spirit of mixed satisfaction 
and modesty that was worth a long journey to witness. I 

72 



shall never forget the universal use of these fine-toothed 
search-warrants in Naples, nor the other soothing spectacle 
witnessed for miles along these same thoroughfares, of fresh- 
made macaroni in all shapes and sizes hanging on poles in 
front of the factories, or lying on the pavements and all 
around and about, and upon this same macaroni the flies and 
the children and the dogs held high carnival. I can't tell 




A MACARONI FEAST. 



how long the macaroni is subjected to such exposure, but 
our party has unanimously resolved that it will be a very 
cold day when any of us tackle the one-time toothsome 
paste again. If Frank Gibbins or Dan Charles sell me any 
more macaroni they must produce vouchers that it did not 
come from Italy, and that it was dried in an oven too hot for 
flies and afar from dirty children and roving dogs. 

73 



Naples is not so rich in art treasures as most of the other 
Italian cities. In fact in all things that lift soul and mind, out- 
side of the things of nature, southern Italy is poor. Northern 
and central Italy have a wealth of art that is beyond expres- 
sion in figures— single churches in smaller cities owning pic- 
tures a Vanderbilt could not purchase. The result of this 
dearth of art in southern Italy is seen in the people and their 
habits. They are not so handsome as the residents of other 
parts of the country, and by no means so well educated, so 
courteous and so enterprising. Besides this, their moral 
scale is lower. In no Italian city but Naples did vice obtrude 
itself, but here an unprotected man is in danger even in 
broad daylight. He wants his wife and a police officer at his 
side to keep off the "giddy girls" and the male toughs, who 
make a business of inviting; tourists to dens oi dirt and danger 
and moral death. 

It is from this port of Italy and from Sicily that New 
Orleans got those undesirable citizens she so unceremoniously 
rid herself of recently. The mafia has no hold in other 
parts of the nation — only in the south of Italy does it flourish. 

Naples has some art of course, possessing a very large 
museum, but in it are few pictures or statues that are famous 
in the art world. The museum has a fine collection of ar- 
ticles from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of Greek and 
Egyptian curios, but no painting the art student journeys to 
see. Of 260 churches in the city, none have more than a 
local name, and while here and there can be found a canvas 
of Raphael or Titian, they are not examples of those masters 
at their best. The Farnese Bull, restored by Michael 
Angelo, is perhaps the greatest piece of art in Naples. The 
one thing that the Neapolitans pride themselves in is the San 
Carlo theatre — one of the largest in the world. It is a very 
unattractive building from the outside, but it has been the 
scene of some of the greatest triumphs in the world of song. 
The people of Southern Italy are more given to music than 

74 



their northern brethren, and from the moment of our arrival 
we were surrounded by good natured and more or less artistic 
performers on the mandolin and guitar. They follow our 
boats in the bay, forced themselves into the dining room of 
the hotel, and we walked, rode, ate and slept in an atmos- 
phere of music and song. A few centissimi, five to a cent, 
satisfies a band of a half dozen performers, and much of their 
music was really enjoyable. 

Vesuvius was in full view all the time, but we did not 
ascend it. We talked of doing so the entire trip, but when 
we reached Naples we found the mercury roosting away 




ROYAL PALACE AND CASTLE OF ST. ELM O. — NAPLES. 

above the 100 place on the thermometer even down on the 
bay, and concluded that 4,000 feet nearer the sun would be 
entirely too hot for us. Moreover the mountain had just had 
one of its periodical attacks of measels and had broken out 
most beautifully, so that there was too much danger in the 
ascent. We, therefore, satisfied ourselves with viewing it 
from all possible points in Naples, from the bay and from the 
mountain heights over about Sorrento and Costellammare. 
It was at this time the Brazilian gentleman, against the judg- 

75 



ment of his friends, made the ascent only to fall into the 
crater and find a terrible death. He left a wife and two 
children at Paris, and we can imagine what a blow was struck 
them by the whispering wire that brought the story of his 
loss. But what a magnificent sepulcher the poor man found. 




MR BEAUCHAMP FEEDING THE PIGEONS IN 
ST. MARKS SQUARE ---VENICE 



76 



Antler Italian Skies. 



A day to be marked with a white stone on the way of 
life, reddest of red-letter days in the book of days, that day 
in June, when putting out from Naples, its dirt and its myriad 
foul scents, over a sea blue as ever were eve'n skies, and 
smooth as a fair maid's cheek, we set sail for Capri, the Blue 
Grotto and Sorrento. It was such a day as poets write of: 
the skies had tints the old masters of Italian art never dream- 
ed of* the breezes were sweet from groves of orange and of 
lime on distant islands, each heart-throb was an ecstasy, and 
life for an hour seemed worth a year's existence anywhere 
else in the world — save home. Our little vessel awaited us 
in the open, and as soon as we were on board off the punt 
that brought us from the shore, round and about it came the 
small craft of the divers, and naked as the day they were 
born, save for a breech-clout about their loins, and brown as 
Indians, they sprang into the blue sea, and swimming about 
our vessel cried in their one English word — "monnay, mon- 
nay." And over the railing we flung our pennies, and these 
children of Neptune with a merry laugh sank down in the 
depths of the waters and caught the coins in their teeth before 
ever they touched the bottom ; up they came to the surface, 
the penny stored away in their cheeks, and again lifted up 
their voices and beseeched us for the copper discs that meant 
so little to us, but meant the solution of the problem of life to 
them. For an hour or more they thus amused the passen- 
gers, spending all that time in the water, seemingly as much 
at home there as they could have been on land. Two or 
three shillings at most were all the half dozen young fellows 

77 



won for their doing, but it seemed highly satisfactory to them 
and they bade us farewell as we put out into the bay, with 
many nods and smiles and contortions of their sun-browned 
bodies. 

And then over that marvelous sea we sailed away for the 
island of Capri — the island of goats. It is about a dozen 
miles from Naples, is four and one-half miles long, with 
almost unbroken lines of cliffs and mountains 2,000 feet high, 




commanding noble views. There are nearly 5,000 inhabi- 
tants on the island, most of them farmers and coral fishers. 
On this island Agustus and Tiberius in that acient time had 
royal palaces and villas, and on the east side one sees the 
ruins of the villa of Tiberius, and the rock 700 feet high, 
called the Salto di Tiberio, and it was from this rock the cruel 

78 



emperor made his victims leap into the sea. On the very sum- 
mit of this mountain island stands Barbarossa's castle. The 
purpose of our visit to Capri was to see the Blue Grotto, one 
of the most beautiful sights in the world. The island has 
many grottoes, but only the Blue one is famous. In rough 
weather it cannot be visited as it is entered through a narrow 
aperture, where the sea beats against a sightly cliff. The 
aperture is only large enough for a small skiff to push its 
way through, the two passengers being compelled to lie at 
full length, until the entrance be passed. Once within, it is 
impossible to suppress the cries of astonishment and surprise 
that demand utterance. The Blue Grotto is like nothing else 
in the world. It is simply a cave 106 by 80 feet in area, 
and 40 feet high, filled to the ocean's level with sea water of 
a silver blue that suggests nothing but a great living jewel. 
The roof of the grotto is white, and the light through the nar- 
row aperture plays upon the roof and the water beneath, and 
the result is fairy-land. A dozen boats followed our 
own in, and boats and passengers alike were encased in 
that wonderful sheen of silver blue until we seemed a 
company of immortals met for a season in one of the 
palaces of the gods. On a rocky shelf in the furthest end 
of the cave we make out a nude statue of the Diver, 
silver blue like all things else in sight. Suddenly it quivers 
into life and in liquid Italian our boatman tells us the boy 
will leap into the water for a few pence. They are promised, 
and there is a lifting up of that lithe form, and then it goes 
down into that wonderful pool becoming the instant the water 
envelopes it an old-time god of shining silver tipped with 
electric blue. Each motion of a muscle, or of a limb, is dis- 
tinctly seen in the translucent depths, and for the time we 
are none of us of this world and this life, but lifted out of 
both, and dwelling with the fabled people in the age of 
the unreal. We are speechless with surprise, and without 
protestation we allow our boatman to take us out of this 

79 



wonderful fairy palace, away from this silver knight who lives 
in the water, and through the narrow door in the great rock, 
to the blue Mediterranean and the blue skies, and the waiting 
vessel beyond. It has been a quarter of an hour such as can 
be had no where else in the world — unless it may come back 
to us when spent with the day's tasks we wander in dream- 
land, and see the whole beautiful picture with the inner eye 
of the soul, that only opens when the eyes of the man materi- 
al are no longer his to control. A few moments' waiting for 
the rest, and then silent, one and all we kept our eyes on 
that narrow aperture in the wall that let us into fairy land, 
and the vessel bears us away to the little port of Capri, where 
dinner awaits us. And when we have landed, and passed 
the persistent women who have donkies to let, and the coral- 
sellers, and the children who beg for pennies, not because 
they need them, but because it is the custom of the children 
of this country to beg till they are old enough to be entrusted 
with the sale of things, and are seated at table, we still won- 
der over that rare sight in the blue grotto, and tell each 
other how if fortune will, we shall return and bring all the 
loved ones so far away today — not to see Naples, nor Vesu- 
vius, nor Pompeii, but that rarest, fairest sight of all this 
land's many marvels, the blue grotto of the island of Capri. 

On our way to the hotel Inghehera,. the donkey owners 
beset us. It is only 200 yards from the quay to the hotel, 
but they beg us to mount the donkies — shaggy, comical crea- 
tures, hardly larger than a Newfoundland dug. And such 
names, " Takee my donkey — " says one woman — him 
Michael Angelo — good donkey,'' but the owner of "George 
Washington" pushes her to one side and trusts to American 
patriotism for a fare. But we are dubious of donkey riding 
and make our way through the dust, up the cliff, and are soon 
seated at tables on the porch of the hotel — for we have or- 
dered luncheon by telegraph long before, and while it is being 
served we look over the waters to Naples and Vesuvius and 

80 



follow the mountains and villages on that grand curve of the 
bay. While we eat, half-naked children gather beneath the 
porch, and sing, dance and stand on their heads and beg for 
pennies with musical voices and black eyes set in faces that 
are beautiful enough for artists to paint. These Italian chil- 
dren are the most beautiful little rascals in the world, but it 
is a beauty that does not long abide with them. The lower 
classes soon lose it, male and female, and in many cases age 
brings horrible ugliness. While the children thus amuse us, 
mothers and sisters also try to beguile the nimble sixpences 
and shillings from our purses. They toss up on our tables 
great strings of real red coral, wrested by their husbands and 
brothers from the coral rocks over towards Spain. A franc 
buys coral enough for necklaces for half a dozen American 
babies, and before our luncheon is over everyone of the party 
has strand upon strand of the red grains wound about their 
necks, and we go down to the boat bedecked like a tribe of 
Indians, the men laughing at their grotesque appearance and 
the women proud of such a store of real coral. 

Our day of days is not half over. Out again upon that 
wonderful sea we sail, bound for Sorrento further along the 
bay --with Pompeii and Herculaneum beyond, and Naples at 
the further side. Two hours of delight and the rocks of Sor- 
rento are before us. A wonderful place this. Quaint vil- 
lages, ancient churches, natural curiosities, villas, convents, 
glens, myrtle and orange groves, rocky islets and points, make 
it unique among Italian summer resorts. The village of Sor- 
rento proper is on the summit of a high rock, rising straight 
as a wall of man's making, out of the sea. It is hundreds of 
feet high, and on either side are deep ravines rich with verdure, 
running into the sea, ravines that the simple-minded dwellers 
there people with fairies. Tasso was born here in 1544, 
and the house of his birth is our hotel today. They seem to 
build houses in this climate for eternity, rather than for time. 
As we land we wonder how we are ever to reach our hotel 

81 



way up on the rock, but a ragged boy points us to a hole in 
the wall, large enough for a fair-sized ship to sail into, and 
through it we march and find ourselves in a huge tunnel 
twenty feet wide, and for a quarter of a mile we walk through 
this queer hall-way, turning now to the right and now to the 
left, and always on the up grade, and at last emerge into 
daylight and another bit of fairyland. We are at the crest of 
the great rock and in a mighty garden of orange, lemon and 
rose trees, all of them golden with ripe fruit, or red and white 
and pink with such roses as our country knows not of. Foun- 
tains are playing merrily, statues gleam here and there through 
the green, and along the paths sheep and beautiful cats and 
kittens gambol, for this animal seems to be the household god 
of the Italians. Through a bewildering maze of such beauty 
as we have found nowhere else, we walk to the village front 
of our hotel — a great marble palace — five stories high, and 
find most royal welcome and great magnificently furnished 
rooms ready for us. Just a moment's dip of our faces in the 
cool water, poured out for us by a light-footed, sweet-faced 
maid, a moment more under her deft hands, that the dust of 
the tunnel passage way be removed from our garments, and 
then we opened our windows and looked out upon a picture 
fairer than any we have ever seen in our travels. 

At our feet, hundreds of feet below, the odd little har- 
bor, and the red, yellow and white sailed fishing boats just 
in from the day's toil of the fishers. Some are unloading 
great masses of shining sea monsters, others are rolling up 
their nets. Now and then we catch faintly the sound of 
their voices as they cry out to the women on the quay, tell- 
ing them of their luck. To the right Vesuvius rises, belching 
forth a great stream of black smoke that winds itself sluggishly 
about the evening winds and is borne far over the white vil- 
lages that stretch out at the base of the volcano towards 
Naples on one side and Sorrento on the other. The evening 
clouds of gold and jasper and sapphire and emerald are fill- 

82 



ing all the sky with turreted castles and many spired cathe- 
drals, with here and there bits of dreamland, forests for the 
sky fairies to wander through and islands dotted with lakes 
of molten gold. Straight opposite lies Naples, no longer a 
place of dirt and death, but a city fair enough for gods to 
dwell in. Kissed into a wondrous glory by the setting sun 
until it glows and sparkles into a picture that only the great 
Artist himself could fashion for his children's" wonder and 
amazement. Those huge castles guarding the sea front are 
carved out of solid gold, and the red of the sky is a setting 
fit for them. And from the highest point of this beautiful 
city of evening our eyes go down along the decreasing shore 
line to that farthest point in sight, stretching out into the 
south, and we know that here was where Paul landed and 
began his long walk that after a time brought him into the 
Appian way, and then to Rome, where the fates found him 
and where he dared all things and then went by the cruel 
way of death to his reward. And as we look out upon this 
picture of more than earthly beauty, somehow we are drawn 
closely to the great heart that throbbed so true after it had 
been touched by the Master's cry, and it seems but a step 
back to his day, and so easy to take it, and taking it, feel as 
never before the glory and worth of the gospel he proclaimed. 
And now the gold has been withdrawn into the inex- 
haustible treasury, and the purple that preceeds the dark 
floods all the sky-world with a new beauty. Through it as 
it deepens the stars begin to gleam, and the lights of the vil- 
lages break one by one into liquid life, and all along the 
shore and up the mountain heights, their glimmer makes the 
night rich with flame, and the wind bears to our ears the 
sound of vesper bells and the voices of peasants singing their 
evening hymns. The purple dies aw^y, the lights shine 
clearer through the black night, the heavenly way is a silver 
and gold pathway to the unknown Country, and while we 
fancy we are on its very borders, the sound of the dinner bell 
breaks the spell, and one comes back to earth and earthly 
things but more thankful than ever before for life and its 
privileges, and praising God for this day of delight and this 
eve'n hour of glory and wonder. 



(Dn xutth t\\z Qnnzz. 



Our " red-letter day " of which I have already written 
had a fitting close. The dark had come upon us as we went 
through the many courses of an excellent table d' hote dinner, 
and when following our cafe noir, or black coffee, we adjourn- 




OUR HOTEL AT SORRENTO. 



ed to the marble-floored portico of the hotel the sight that 
greeted us was one of rare beauty. Here and there on the 
waters of the Mediterranean, 300 feet below us, sparkled and 



danced the lights on the fisher's boats. Across the bay the 
gas and electric lights of Naples, and other lights stretching 
miles away till they joined with the stars near the horizon 
line. To the right the shadow of Vesuvius loomed up and 
stretching far above it toward the north its black smoke, now 
and then made red by the glare of the hidden fires. All 
around and about us twinkled the lights on the mountains, 
from monastery, church and home. A crescent moon added 
to the beauty of it all, with myriad stars of silver glory. We 
seated ourselves on the portico and drank in the beauty of 
the night and place, the while the electric lights of the hotel 
played upon the green and gold of the lime, lemon and 
orange trees surrounding us. Suddenly we heard the silvery 
tinkle of mandolin and guitar, the click of castanets and the 
sweet sound of the violin, and through the streets there came 
to us a score of Neapolitans, male and female, dressed in 
their many hued national costumes, that came in with the 
birth of this people into the beauty of art, and is fast being 
driven away by the demands and customs of so-called fashion 
and civilization. This was our troupe of tarantella perform- 
ers engaged by ourselves by telegraph, because we had heard 
and read of these delightful performers. Smiling and bowing 
they leaped upon the marble floor and "the night was filled 
with music." Not the precise music of the later school, 
sacrificing rythm and melody and fire to the demands of the 
classicists and the desire of the performer to exhibit his skill 
in the difficult runs and intricate measures that " are full of 
sound and fury, yet signifying nothing," but music that came 
out of the sunshine, and the birds' song, and the ocean's 
breeze, and the night's beauty, and the leaves' rustling, and 
was simply the expression, uncontrolled, of happy hearts and 
souls that felt all the glad beauty and glory of life in such a 
place, and under such skies as those that hung rich in stars 
above us. It was the music that is born into receptive souls, 
and had to do with their whole lives and nature, not the 

85 



music whipped by impatient masters into nimble fingers con- 
trolled by indifferent and unappreciative minds. 

And then when we were ready to cry aloud our pleasure, 
suddenly the performers separated into two parties, and 
while the music came gladder and more swift from the instru- 
ments, as if the souls of the players had just had a new reve- 
lation of the glory of living, the dancers began to twirl 
and bend and sway and leap into a tangled, yet orderly 
and poetic play — in which every motion was a word and 
each bar a paragraph. Red and blue and yellow and white 
of dress, silver and gold and irridescence of jewels, and the 
green of the trees and the shadows of the electric lights, and 
the laughing eyes of the dancers and their white teeth and 
rosy cheeks were all flashing in one grand picture, and the 
wonder grew upon us each and all that there was such clean 
and royal pages in the Book of Life, and that we were priv- 
ileged to turn them. With music that was a revelation to us 
all, and with dancing and sudden tableaux unlike anything 
else in the world pertaining to the saltatory art, they made 
moments for us out of the hours. The dancing had none of 
the indecencies of the modern ballet, the limbs were decor- 
ously covered and there was nothing that might not have 
added interest to a church entertainment, but how bright and 
beautiful and new it all was. 

And when they had played and danced and posed for 
us until our hands were red with applauding, and our souls 
filled with satisfaction, they sprang a new delight upon us. 
They performed pantomimes that were as new and original 
as the music and dancing and the songs, and we laughed till 
we cried. Old women and old men, preachers and deacons 
forgot that life had any austere phases or serious moments, 
and some of them leaped from their chairs and lifted their 
voices in such shouts that the mountains caught them up and 
threw them back in rolling echoes from recesses far up where 
the thunders and the eagles played, and the fisher folk in 

86 



their vessels below heard the cries and laughed loud and long, 
for they knew that Italy's most famous tarantella performers 
were playing upon the heart strings of the foreign visitors to 
their beautiful Sorrento. 

One thing that added to our enjoyment was the fact that 
the performers themselves were so joyous. It seemed simply 
a part of their life, not one of their tasks for bread. There 
was nothing perfunctory about it — they sang as if life was all 
song, danced as if existence was all dancing, and played as 
if such playing came upon them at birth. The tarantella 
is a Neapolitan and Spanish dance — or rather series of 
dances, unlike anything ever seen in America. There is 
nothing sensuous or indecent in it; no short costumes, no 
suggestive motions, but is rather the innocence and glee of 
childhood, its romps and plays set to music and educated 
into poetic form and artistic measures. It is something to 
see and dream of for a life time. The singing of this troupe 
was far better than that of the average Italian opera troupe 
we hear at home, and their songs were of their own soil and 
their own life, and were musical as the falling waters above 
which the birds carol, and we laughed with them as their ex- 
pressive faces told us of things that were comical, and we 
wept with them as we understood those same faces when 
they sang of the sad moments that enter into all lives. 
They made us better men and women — they sang and danced 
and played into our natures the very gospel of the universal 
brotherhood of man, and when, after three hours of the rarest 
enjoyment ever performers presented to wondering and de- 
lighted auditors, they fell out of a beautiful tableau into their 
separate selves and tried to bow themselves away from us into 
their lovely homes — afar from the glitter and glare of our 
palace hotel, we would not permit it, but ran and took them 
by the hands and in our wonderful Italian, that must have 
set their very teeth on edge, we told them of our pleasure 
and delight, and like the modest children they really are — 

87 



full grown men and women though they be, they hung their 
heads and were abashed. We pressed gifts upon them, and 
whether they would or no, took from them their castanets — 
of olive wood, inlaid with Sorrento work —for this wonderful 
inlaying of wood is a specialty of the place, and gave them 
silver until their very eyes sparkled and the way into the 
future seemed brighter for them because of our liberality. 
And I had arrangements made and got a large photograph of 
those sunny faced men and women taken on the marble por- 
tico in one of their tableaux following the dance of the tar- 
antella, and had it colored by an artist. 

And at last we let our merry friends sing us a last fare- 
well, and gathering up their instruments and robes they 
passed out of our lives perhaps forever, so far as their per- 
sonality is concerned, but leaving with us memories of enjoy- 
ment that are worth a fortune, and lessons of life worth more; 
for humble peasants though they be, rude and unlettered 
in the niceties of life as we have been taught to look upon it, 
they showed us how easy it is to find sunshine and content; 
how much of innocent pleasure can be had if we are willing 
to reach out for it, and how much more life is worth the liv- 
ing if we mix it with song and music and play. " God bless 
the merry musicians of Sorrento," we said, as their many 
colored garments flashed back to us between the lemon and 
orange trees as they went from us into the night. And down 
the cliffs they went to their homes; and by and by there 
came up to us the sweet sounds of their last farewell, and the 
upper heights caught them and tossed them from crag to peak 
and back again, and we lifted our own voices and tried to 
make reply. Fainter and fainter the sound of the sweet 
young voices, and then — only the flutter of the bats overhead, 
and now and then the cry beneath us from the boat of some 
fishermen. And as we turned for a good-night look at 
Vesuvius and Naples, and the lights upon Capri, suddenly , from 
the villages and cities, on the level and on the heights, flashed 



into the upper night the gold and silver, and green and red 
and blue, of rockets and roraan candles and other ingenious 
fire-works. Village spoke to village and city to city with 
these fiery messengers, and the clang of the church bells 
were heard and not far away the crooning of a mass, and it 
was midnight, and the day of the Blessed St. John was come 
and the faithful worshipers had not forgotten. All honor to 
those of every creed who, whether by night or by day, stand 
ready to perform their religious functions. And I love those 
faithful Catholic souls, not because I understand their religion, 
but because I do understand and appreciate the sincerity and 
earnestness of their devotion to it. Their creed may be right 
or wrong, God will decide that, but the spirit of their readi- 
ness to worship, and their evident faith, is something the 
believers in all creeds could adopt and be the better there- 
for. But the last rocket has climbed its golden way toward 
the stars. 

Pompeii awaitslus on the morrow and so to all these 
beauties and pleasures, to towering Vesuvius, and Naples and 
rugged Capri and Sorrento — place of beauty and delight — 
in the old way of the Roman, "Hail and Farewell." 





BIRTHPLACE OF SHAKESPEARE. 





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8 IB&iUlMg 


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ROOM IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE WAS BORN. 



9o 



£n Interesting Trip to tire Silent (Etlg. 

It was with many regrets we walked away from our 
hotel at Sorrento, down through the grove of oranges, lemons 
and limes, and the great rose trees full of bloom, to the stone 
gate-way leading into the village. Here we found waiting 
us four fine carriages, each drawn by a pair of magnificent 
horses, and the obsequious drivers bowing and smiling as we 
approached. 

After tucking the Duchess and her friends safely within 
the carriages the courier and myself took our accustomed 
places upon the driver's box, the portier of the hotel bade 
us farewell with almost oriental genuflexions, the chattering 
populace of all ages, sizes and shades of Italian brown shout- 
ed a cheery good bye, or whined a doleful petition for alms, 
a crack of the long whip in the hands of the driver in the 
lead, and away we dashed through the narrow streets of one 
of the quaintest yet most beautiful places in the world. We 
were en route for Naples, by way of Pompeii and Hercula- 
neum, a drive of twenty-two miles. It was a day fit for such 
a journey. The skies were blue as a baby's eyes — that light 
blue which becomes darker as the child grows up into the 
years — and becomes likewise darker in the skies as the day 
grows older. There was not a fleck of cloud in sight. Noth- 
ing to relieve the blue of ocean and sky save the green heights 
of Ischia and Capri, and the white sails of the fishing smacks. 

As we got outside the village we began to climb the 
mountains over roads that can only be found in Italy. Cut 
out of the sides of mountains that are almost entirely rock, 
and day and night under the care of road walkers, they are 
level and smooth as a ball-room floor. They are almost white 

9i 



in color, and make a beautiful effect as they go winding up 
the heights between the gray walls of the villas and the green 
of the groves of olives and limes which cover the mountains 
in all directions. 

Now and then we cross stone bridges over ravines four 
and five hundred feet deep; bridges that were evidently Ro- 
man, and built in those early days when men seemed to labor 
as if they knew they were leaving monuments for the people 
of the centuries to wonder at and admire. The views we 
had were charming in the extreme. As we rose higher we 
could see odd little white villages nestling all about the moun- 
tains, while at the feet of the heights, lying against or upon 
mighty walls of rock, were the fishing villages, generally dark- 
er in their coloring than the mountain hamlets, perhaps be- 
cause of the more direct action of the sea upon them. At 
times we stopped the carriages to allow our kodackers to take 
snap shots at peculiarly inviting scenes, and at other times that 
we might pluck the beautiful wild flowers of all colors that 
fairly rioted along our dusty way. Whenever a turn of the 
road brought us facing the sea Vesuvius loomed up on our 
left, sometimes belching forth great black volumes of smoke 
as if all the furnaces of Hades were venting themselves, and 
again barely emitting enough to let us know it was not yet at 
rest. The funicular railroad, which takes passengers almost 
to the crest of the volcano, could be seen winding around 
and about it, bringing to our minds the popular Italian song, 
" Up the Funicular," which has been dinned in our ears all 
over lower Italy, until " Annie Rooney" would be a blessed 
relief. The song deals with the story of a jolly, good fellow 
who staid out with the boys all night and tried to pacify his 
irate wife by telling her that he had gone up the railway with 
a friend and missed the last train back, having to remain on 
the crest all night. 

Twelve miles of magnificent views, under the green and 
gold and purple of oranges, limes, olives and grapes; past 

92 



quaint churches and great monasteries and convents, and 
towards the last over level plains, rich with garden produce, 
where the irrigating ditches were being filled from wells with 
long circular sweeps to which women or asses were harness- 
ed, and at last with mighty flourish of whips our coachmen 
drove us to the door of the Hotel Diomede, at the village of 
Pompeii, and hastily springing from the boxes, with hats in 
hand, beseech us to give them "Macaroni." This is the 
Italian for a gratuity. As they have been obliging in many 
ways during the drive we give them a handful of centissimi, 
five to the cent, and rush into the hotel to be dusted off, to 
get washed up and to order luncheon to be ready for us 
when we shall have got through our inspection of the resur- 
rected city. 

It is only a few steps from the hotel to the gateway lead- 
ing into Pompeii, and here we pay two lire each, forty cents, 
and are passed through the turn-stile such as admits us to the 
exposition at Cincinnati. The men in charge are soldiers, 
for Pompeii is under the control of the state, and soldiers in 
full uniform are detailed to act as our guides. Placards all 
about the entrance give information that no gratuities are 
permitted to be offered to guides, but we give them just the 
same. This is the rule regarding government guides every- 
where, as in the various palaces of the king of Italy, at 
Windsor, the residence of the queen of England; at the royal 
stables there, at Buckingham palace and the tower of London, 
as well as the Vatican at Rome; but in all these places we 
tipped our guides, and found that we got more willing service 
and a vast deal more information than did those who lived 
up to the rule. On some English railroads it is advertised 
that any employe receiving a tip will be dismissed from ser- 
vice, but I shed shillings to the railway guards all over Great 
Britain, and many a time did the Duchess and I get a whole 
compartment to ourselves therefor. The guard would lock 
us in, and tell others who tried to enter that our compartment 

93 



was especially engaged. And then the Duchess and I chuck- 
led cherily, lay all over the long seats, and appreciated fully 
the potency of a shilling when properly applied. The wealth- 
iest man in our party made up his mind that he would give 
no tips on his trip, and a more disgusted man with foreign 
travel never breathed. He was nearly starved to death, had 
to carry his own baggage everywhere, saw no special sights, 
could seldom get a civil answer to a question, and returned 
home the most disgruntled man I ever saw. But I am off 
the track and must get back. 

Pompeii was a Greek commercial city builded nearly 
five hundred years before Christ. It was subjugated by 
Rome and became a favorite resort of her nobles and em- 
perors, having at the time of its greatest glory 25,000 inhab- 
itants. It was peculiarly built, the lower stories of the houses 
being of concrete or brick, and the upper stories possibly of 
wood, for the latter have entirely disappeared, while the 
lower ones have all been found intact so far as the city has 
been excavated. The walls of Pompeii were one mile and a 
half around, and there were eight gates. Nearly all of the 
city has been uncovered save that portion farthest from the 
bay, evidently the section occupied by the poorer class or 
the slaves. The streets were principally but fourteen feet 
wide, paved with lava blocks in which great ruts are to be 
seen, evidently made by centuries of chariot riding. There 
are stepping stones and fountains at all the street corners. I 
imagine those ancient chariot drivers must have done some 
tall cussing in their time, for there is not a street in the city 
where two teams could possibly pass. 

Pompeii was twice destroyed. In 63 A. D. it was en- 
tirely overthrown by an earthquake. It was immediately 
rebuilt for sixteen years of activity, and then Vesuvius belch- 
ed forth its fury and the city was hidden for sixteen hundred 
and sixty-nine years. Most people speak of Pompeii as 
having been destroyed by the lava eruption from Vesuvius. 

94 



This is an error. Herculaneum, a few miles nearer the vol- 
cano, caught all the lava and was destroyed thereby, but 
Pompeii caught only the ashes, being buried under them 
twenty feet. This was in the year 79 A. D., and the exca- 
vations were not commenced till 1848, and they are still 
going on, under the direction of the Italian government. 

It is one of the most interesting places on earth. There 
was so little of it actually destroyed, (barely anything but 
the upper stories of the houses before referred to, and but 
few of the houses had more than the one floor), that one 
seems to feel that he is walking through a city from which the 
inhabitants have just fled, or have been entirely destroyed by 
an epidemic. The business signs still hang on the sides of the 
houses, or project out above the doors, and with no trouble 
whatever we find where the baker, the wine dealer, the dyer, 
the barber, the sculptor and the soap maker transacted their 
business. Here on the corner is a sign decidedly familiar, 
save only that it is in pure Latin: Cave Canem — Beware the 
dog. But here is one that exists no where else in the world. 
Were Pompeii and Herculaneum, like Sodom and Gomorrah, 
destroyed for their sins? I cannot explain this sign,- but it 
projects from the house of the woman "Whose footsteps 
take hold upon hell." There are several of these houses of 
sin here, and while the women are decoyed away to examine 
the plant of the soap factory the guide unlocks a door and 
lets the men into an old time den of debauchery. Its walls 
are the attraction. Some ancient artist, whose genius with 
the brush was as great as his mind was foul, has frescoed 
each room. A single glance is sufficient. Such licentious 
pictures can certainly have existence no where else on earth. 
But the coloring is marvelous, and the execution better than 
that of many of the old masters whose canvasses hang on 
palace walls, and over which the art world raves. These 
pictures were painted perhaps 2,000 years ago, and the tints 
are as fresh as though they were placed upon the walls 

95 



yesterday. Modern painters with all their delicacy and grace 
have never yet discovered the secret of making colors like 
the artists of these earlier days. In one house in Pompeii 
is a painting twenty feet wide of Acteon surprising. Diana at 
the bath, and it is better in form, execution and coloring 
than nine-tenths of the canvasses that find royal place in the 
Louvre at Paris, which is supposed only to contain the work of 
masters, and where many of the canvasses are priceless. But 
we breathe freer when we have closed the doors of this palace 
of sin, and stand in the narrow street outside, still wondering 
upon that old time genius who could prostitute a gift from 
heaven to such vile purpose. What a story it would be, if 
if only it could be told, of the social and artistic life that throb- 
bed and thrilled in this strange city before the ashes fell. 

Pompeii, barring its narrow streets, was unquestionably 
a city of even royal magnificence. The temples of Venus, 
Augustus, Mercury, Isis, Adonis, the public granary, prison, 
custom house, barracks, town hall, academy of music, the 
basilica, the triumphal arch, and the beautiful Chalcidicum 
as well as many of the private residences were all nobly 
planned, and most artistically and beautifully decorated. 
On every private door step is still to be seen the Roman word 
for welcome — " Salve," and crossing the threshold we find 
that the reception room was really a great central court where 
fountains played, and on the walls of which artistic frescoes 
delighted the visitor. The floors were all of delicate mosaic 
in white and black marble, and while the soldier's backs 
were turned we proved ourselves Americans by picking out 
and pocketing these little dice that were pressed by the feet 
of haughty nobles and fair dames before the gentle Nazarene 
had started upon his mission. It is claimed that Americans 
are easily told in any part of the world by their habit of steal- 
ing everything in the way of souvenirs of historic interest 
they can get their hands on. At Genoa the letters of 
Columbus shown to tourists are photographic copies. This 

96 



is done because an American woman some years since, when 
the custodian's back was turned, tore off a part of one of the 
original letters and got safely away with it. I cannot help 
in this connection repeating the words of the Greek philoso- 
pher — "Bully for her." 

One of the principal private houses of Pompeii is the 
House of the Tragic Poet. As we entered it we thought of 
the poet, and Nydia, the blind girl, and the last days of 
Pompeii, and Bulwer. The book and its writer have added 
interest for us now. And by the way this is one of the bless- 




THE HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET. 

ings and benefits of travel ; it adds so much to the meaning 
of books. Agnes of Sorrento, and the Marble Faun, and 
Dr. Ruffini, and the Stones of Venice, and Caso Guidi Win- 
dows can all be reread, and new beauties discovered in them 
since we have taken this long journey, and the Lays of 
Ancient Rome can thrill us even more than of yore as each, 
line brings back a spot on which we have stood in Rome. 

In the Pompeian wine shops the counters still stand, and 
beneath them are the stone jars out of which the dealer serv- 
ed his customers with the vintage of the Italian hillsides. 

97 



The baker's shop still has the mill where the grain was ground, 
and the ovens in which the loaves were baked, ovens that 
are much like the outdoor ovens still seen in use in our own 
country villages of the Pennsylvania Dutch folk, and in the 
museum can be seen some of the loaves that were in these 
ovens that night so long since, when the ashes came and 
blotted the whole city from the sight of men, and these loaves 
are the exact size and shape of the ones baked today in 
Pompeii and served us at our hotel. 

Most of the articles found at Pompeii are in the govern- 
ment museum at Naples. There were over two thousand 
lives lost in the catastrophe, but only a few bodies have been 
preserved. This is due to the fact that most of the forma- 
tions in which they were found were destroyed by the exca- 
vators before it was understood what precious relics were 
enclosed in them. The discovery is said to have been made 
by one of the workmen who, concluding that the oddly 
shaped masses of hardened ashes had been formed about 
something of the olden time, and finding that they seemed 
to be at least partly hollow, bored holes in some of those dis- 
covered after the forming of those conclusions, and poured 
plaster within. This hardening, the outer crust was removed, 
and this brought to light the bodies that are today the most 
interesting of all the relics of Pompeii. The action of time 
had of course destroyed the fluids of the bodies, and the flesh 
had shriveled as in the case of mummies, but the bones re- 
mained nearly intact, and in the bodies at Pompeii and at 
Naples these can be seen in places where the plaster has 
broken off, while the teeth are exposed in the same way. 
So perfect has the work been done that the hair of one of the 
women is seen to be still in the shape she was wearing it at 
the time when she found so pitiable a fate. It may be inter- 
esting to add that the style is almost exactly similar to that 
of the Greek knot fashionable but recently. Most of the 
bodies are in the Naples museum, but four remaining at 



Pompeii. One of these is that of a woman who was evidently 
approaching maternity, and the ladies of our party reading 
the whole sad story at a glance turned from the case with 
moistened cheeks, and were very quiet for a time. Their 
sympathy came a little late to be sure, but all honor to theii 
womanly tenderness for all that. The contorted shapes ot 
the bodies show how painful was the death of the unfortunate 
Pompeians. Most of them have their arms over their faces, 
as if they tried as long as possible to keep the burning ashes 
therefrom. Besides these bodies the museum contains 



•^ 




A POMPEIAN VICTIM. 



various articles of household use, arms, implements of labor, 
and skeletons of horses, dogs and what seem to be pigs and 
chickens. In one case alongside of loaves of dread, baked 
nearly eighteen centuries ago is an ordinary everyday egg, 
that must have been laid about the time the baker was fash- 
ioning the loves. I tried to buy it, but failed. I wanted to 
present it to a certain hotel proprietor whose omelettes have 
always seemed to me to need the addition of at least a moder- 
ately fresh egg to make them palatable. 

99 



But we have thoroughly examined this strange, quiet 
city. We have gone up all the streets and down into all the 
baths, (for these people hated of fate were evidently cleaner 
than their livelier followers of today,) have seen the monu- 
ments in the Street of Tombs, and the house of pleasure in 
the Street of Abundance ; we have sat in the great amphi- 
theatre and tried to imagine what form of show they gave there 
when emperors were the theatrical managers, and nobles acted 
as scene shifters and supernumeraries ; we have entered the 
tenantless house of Pansa, of Castor and Pollux and of Apollo, 
and there is a suspicious sensation in the front central part of 
my physical structure that speaks in no uncertain tone of the 
necessity of an adjournment to some spot more modern, 
where the inner man may have attention, and so off we go 
for luncheon at the worst hotel in the world. Modern 
Pompeii is a village consisting of two hotels and a blacksmith 
shop. Stop at either one of the hotels. It makes no possible 
difference. In an hour you will wish you had gone to the 
other one. I cannot tell just what our meal was like, as to 
do the subject full justice I should have to use language that 
might not be satisfactory to the deacons of the Presbyterian 
church, and as I have forgetfully allowed my yearly dues to fall 
behind I cannot afford to take my chances. But it was the 
only poor meal we got in Italy, and the service was execrable. 
Dirt reigned supreme in the house, on the table and in the 
victuals, but the price was rather low for the place, so that 
we lost more in appetite and temper than we did in cash. 
Before we could get away the proprietor tried to sell us relics 
from Pompeii, such as lamps, tableware, and articles of 
household use. Some he confessed were simply Manchester 
made imitations, and these were offered us at from twenty 
cents to a dollar each, but the genuine articles of like size 
and appearance were fifteen to fifty times as much. From all 
I could learn from the courier and those who are posted in 
the matter the only difference between the imitation and the 



genuine Pompeii relics is that the latter were made in the 
iron works at 'Manchester, England a year or two before the 
imitation ones were turned out. You can pay your money 
and take your choice. As all of Pompeii is government 
property, and the excavating is done under the eye of the 
soldiers none of the articles found can get into private hands, 
but are placed at once in one or the other of the museums, 
or presented by the government to the museums of other 
countries. 

Shortly after finishing our luncheon the Duchess had a 
fainting spell. On recovering from it one of the ladies of the 
party took a bottle of medicine from her satchel, and getting 
a glass poured a teaspoonful therein and asked me to get a 
little water to mix with it. I picked up a water caraffe from 
the table in the dining room and poured one tablespoonful 
into the glass containing the medicine. What was my aston- 
ishment to receive a call from one of th*e clerks of the hotel 
a few moments later, and a demand from him for ten centiss- 
imi for the tablespoonful of water. I was not feeling very 
well at that time myself, and the manner in which I turned 
upon him and in my choicest Italian told him to "go to 
Hades," was worth taking a long journey to witness. Strictly 
speaking I used the old version for Hades, and then fearing 
he might not entirely understand me I sent for the courier 
and had him translate it to the clerk. He at once left the 
room, but whether he started on the journey I recommended 
him to take I cannot say. If he gets there safely he may 
find the desired ten centissimi, but he did not get them 
from me. 

At 3 o'clock we again got into the carriages and started 
for Naples. The road from Pompeii to Naples is entirely 
level, but full of interest. 



Gambles trt Itatg. 



It is 3 o'clock and Naples is fourteen miles away. The 
sun beats heavily down upon us, and the roads, needing rain 
for weeks, are dusty and disagreeable, but one must put up 
with minor discomforts if he would see the beauties and 
wonders of strange countries. So after telling the landlord of 
the Hotel Diomede that he can congratulate himself on keep- 
ing the dirtiest and meanest hotel in Europe, if not in the 
world, we take our seats in the carriage and are off at a good 
pace. For six miles or more we pass through a farming 
country like that on the other side of Pompeii, with women, 
donkeys and dogs sharing the task of irrigating the fields 
from the quaint wells that are scattered here and there over 
the farms, and then we begin to pass through streets of ancient 
cities that reach out from Naples for seven or eight miles, 
with no visible sign to tell that they are not parts of that city. 
There are half a dozen of these cities, some of them having 
50,000 population. In each one is one or more old palaces, 
with the armorial bearings of the ancient owners still upon 
them, but most of them have been changed into theaters, 
tenement houses, or used for restaurants, and attached to 
wine gardens into which the old palace grounds have been 
transposed. Some of these buildings are of marble, and all 
of them are massive and imposing in appearance, but the 
people surrounding them, looking out of the windows, and 
passing by on the sidewalks detract considerably from the 
dignity of the ancient piles. As we have written before it 
seems that this part of Italy is inhabited by the meaner class 
of Italians, and certainly those we are passing now are for- 



bidding enough in every sense. Dressed in rags, more 
familiar with dirt than with soap, they seem an ill-natured, 
vicious people. The men are lying in many of the door- 
ways, on cellar doors, and even in the street, using the curb 
for a pillow, taking their afternoon siesta with the dogs and 
fleas. At last we pass through the city of Resina, one of the 



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LUCERNE AND MT PILATUS. 



largest of these suburban places, and are now on historic 
ground. 

There seems to be more activity here than elsewhere in 
southern Italy. Iron foundries, car shops and other manu- 
facturing establishments abound, and the gospel of labor 
seems to have made these people a little better looking, and 
God knows a good deal cleaner than their near neighbors. 
Macaroni factories we pass by the dozen, and the yellow pipe 



stems are lying all over the pavements and in some instances 
half way across the streets, that the sun may put them into 
portable and shippable condition. 

Just beyond Resina is Baia, the most magnificent of 
summer resorts in the time of Cicero, Augustus and Hadrian, 
and sung of by Horace. Here are numerous ruins of ancient 
temples, the villas of Julius Casaer, Nero, and Hortensius, 
and a splendid Roman reservoir. Near by are the ruins of 
Cumae, founded by the Greeks 1050 B. C, which founded 
Naples, and gave the Sibylline books to Rome. Six cen- 
turies ago, it was annihilated by the Neapolitans as a den 
of pirates. Lake Avernus, with the fabled entrance into 
Hades, is on our left over toward Naples, and near Pozzuoli. 
In this place Sylla died, Hadrian was buried, and St. Paul 
sojourned for seven days. Nearly every square rod of land 
between Pompeii and Naples has attached to it such historic 
interest as the spots mentioned. 

But Resina, through which we drive in this terrible after- 
noon sun, through or near these other places, is important to 
us because it is built upon the overwhelmed city of Hercu- 
laneum, destroyed by the lava at the time Pompeii was cov- 
ered by the ashes of Mt. Somna, for it was this latter mount 
rather than Vesuvius that destroyed both places. The two 
peaks were of course part of the same great mountain, 4,000 
feet high, situated in the plain of Campagna. After the 
eruption of 79 A. D., Mt. Somna concluded she had accom- 
plished enough mischief and went to sleep, never more to 
wake. Her subterranean furnaces were shortly afterwards 
by some wondrous agency transferred to Vesuvius, and that 
old heathen has been keeping things warm ever since. There 
have been sixty eruptions since the transfer, entailing enor- 
mous loss of life and damage to property. In 1872 during 
an eruption a party of twenty people, who were watching the 
terrible scene, were all swept into eternity by a stream of 
lava that suddenly came down upon them. 

104 



The site of Herculaneum was accidentally discovered 
in 1 7 19 by some men who were digging a well in Resina. 
The excavations since then have shown that Herculaneum 
lies from forty to ninety feet beneath the city. The covering 
of lava is so hard and the depth so great that little of the 
ancient city has been exposed, but that little shows that 
Herculaneum was a much richer place than Pompeii. A few 



r N W'S 




J} 







ST. MARK'S. -VENICE. 

residences and shops, and an enormous theater are the only 
places to be seen. It is doubtful if the city will ever be 
entirely uncovered, as the property rights of the people of 
Resina stand in the way. 

On our way here as we passed through the country we 
saw men, women, and in some cases cattle, on the level roofs 
of houses, moving around in a circle, the people dancing 

105 



and leaping, as we thought, for joy. We were mistaken, 
however, as this is the method in vogue here for thrashing 
and winnowing grain. It seemed rather strange to see even 
country roads furnished with the arc sytem of electric lights, 
and the people treading out their grain after the manner of 
the Egyptians thousands of years ago. 

But the sun is setting, our stomachs, still revolting at 
Pompeian luncheon, prompt us to whip up our steeds, and 
after a four hour's drive we reach our hotel in Naples, where 
a good dinner and an excellent night's rest awaits us, and 
where at the hotel entrance we find the same smiling Italian 
peddler who offers us for the hundredth time a tortoise shell 
fine comb at our own price. But we had not yet felt the 
need of one, and he made no sale. A week later he could 
have cleared out his stock. 

After a bountiful] dinner to the accompaniment of a 
strolling band of singers and musicians, we passed a couple 
of hours on the public square, where a magnificent band 
belonging to the king is playing to a crowd of at least five 
thousand, in the great arcade, with its half mile of brilliantly 
lighted stores, and in the stores on the Toledo, or Via Roma, 
as they are trying to call it since the unification — the princi- 
pal street of Naples. Here the ladies purchase kid gloves of 
the best quality at the rate of five lira and twenty-five cen- 
tissimi for three pairs; equal to gloves that cost a dollar and 
a half at home. The minister's wife exclaims: "If I thought 
I could get them through the customs at New York I would 
purchase a hundred pair." We are very little troubled by 
the customs authorities here, but we are all dreading the 
examination at New York. It is understood that a lady is 
allowed two dozen pair, lacking one, without duty, and each 
member of the party has at least that number to remember 
Paris, and the other cities by. We also lay in our usual 
stock of photographs, and go to the jewelers for our souvenir 
spoons. The Duchess has determined to have the finest 

1 06 



collection of these handsome baubles that can be found and 
the chances are that she will succeed. She has never failed in 
anything since I knew her, and I glory in her grit. The 
spoons are purchased at last, and with our pockets full of sou- 
venirs we go back down the Toledo, along the foul, illsmell- 
ing bay front, under the frowning St. Elmo, and are soon 
sleeping the sleep of the tired and just. 



I 



3*frf~ f f f f f f ?j?f f f ffi - ^ 



i 




MILAN CATHEDRAL 

We awake on a beautiful Sabbath morning. I have 
searched the markets over for the berries without which 
breakfast is a poor meal to me, and finishing these, the car- 
riages are at the door and we are off for a hot ride of nearly 
400 miles for Florence, by way of Rome. Before leaving 
the Eternal city we had the forethought to contract with the 
proprietor of the depot restaurant to have luncheon ready 



107 



for our party on the arrival of the north bound train, and at 
i o'clock we entered the magnificent station of Rome and 
find an excellent meal already smoking on the table, with a 
bottle of wine at each plate. After much talk in Italian, 
French, German and English, and a combination of all four 
tongues, we make the proprietor understand that we are all 
total abstainers, and although he has never before seen so 
many people at his tables who drank only water, he cour- 
teously offers us seltzer, mineral waters or lemonade in ex- 
change for the wine, and we are content. A hot and dusty 
ride of five hours follows, and at last we are at Florence, and 
in the Hotel Washington, on the Lung Aino, or way of the 
river Arno, and anxiously await the morrow and the rare 
sights it has in store for us. 




10S 



Flareutin, tltB Bmutifttl. 



Firenzi, Giugno 28, 1891. 
That's the way they spell it down in this country. I 
don't think they know much about spelling here, do you ? I 
should spell it thus : Florence, June 28th. But then there's 
no accounting for tastes, as the old woman said when she 
kissed her cow. This is a great country, if they can't spell 
in the good old United States fashion. But it is a country 
that must face the future. Its past has been great only in 
art. Its present is great only in what nature and art have 
done for it. The future must deal with the people and lift 
them up to higher things than are found in their life of the 
present. Torn with internal wars for centuries, a state whose 
every county fought for supremacy, it is only since 187 1 that 
the union under Victor Emanuel has been trying to straighten 
out the twisted threads. Since the days of the Ghents and 
Ghibbelines (and for all I know long before), the different 
parts of Italy have been at war, Tuscany and Napoli and 
Rome, and Venetia, and God knows how many other divis- 
ions, all wanting to rule, and the dear old Pope claiming 
everything in sight. But the world moves, as Galileo Galilei, 
of this same city, said of the earth, within a stone's throw of 
where I write this, after he made his recantation; and the 
nineteenth century and Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi and 
the fates triumphed, and Italy is a whole, not a mass of war- 
ring particles; and the Pope of today, is a prisoner in the 
Vatican, never having been out of it since his election. 
There is now a future for Italy, but I cannot say it is near. 
Tomorrow is a future time, but there can be a tomorrow of 

109 



tomorrows, and as we said in our school days, "tomorrow 
never comes." Italy's tomorrow will come, but when ? 
Ask the fates. 

Italy once priest ridden, is now ridden by the tax-gath- 
erer, and he rides early and late. Every ounce of wheat or 
corn, or bread, every gill of wine, every pound of stone, 
every wisp of hay, every measure of fruit must pay tribute 
at the gates of each city. The peasant who sells a hen, must 
square matters at the town wall with the custom officer, and 
as the Duchess and I drive back from the heights without, 




THE CITY OF FLORENCE. 



said officer inspects our carriage, lest perchance we have 
brought a mouthful of food into the city that may escape the 
tax. Have you a house for rent or a room ? Write out a 
simple notice to that effect and put it on the wall or in the 
window, but first of all you must affix a two-cent stamp. 
Are you selling goods ? In the window of your store you 
may put the price on the article exposed, but if you want to 
say that the neckties are reduced, or the dress goods are the 
latest fashions, or the gloves are best kid, then it will rrsf 
you two cents for each explanation. 



It is little wonder that every Italian city is as full of 
beggars as Valambrosa's shades are said to be of leaves, and 
by the way Valambrosa is but eighteen miles from here. 

Italy is the only country in the world where the poor 
live in palaces. The old nobles have been impoverished 
warring against their fellows ; the newer blood is faster than 
the old and has got fevered with the day's vices, and money 
must be had for the needs of the hour. So the halls that 
have echoed to kingly tread and the caroling of queens, are 
the play ground of ragged, dirty, bambinos (babies), and their 
parents eat, drink, fight, live and die, in rooms that still show 
through their grime the frescoes of masters, in houses that 
were designed by men whose names will never die. 

Outside every church in Italy beggars abound ; they 
push aside the silken or leather hangings of the door that you 
may enter, and expect cinque centessime — one cent. And 
the church within has untold wealth of gold, silver, sculptur- 
ing and paintings, to say nothing of saints whose carven 
forms and shrines are studded with jewels. I will swear that 
on this Sunday in four buildings I have seen enough wealth 
thus applied to purposes of decoration to support in comfort 
Italy's entire population for a generation. Among which are 
Venus de Medici, the Wrestlers, the Hermorphrodite, Perseus, 
Hercules, Judith, Rape of the Sabines, and a dozen other 
pieces of sculpture that are world famous, and a thousand 
others that money cannot buy. Raphael's Madonna of the 
Chair, most beautiful of all the Madonnas, Murillo's Holy 
Family, Carlo Dolci's Magdalen, sweetest face of all the 
women of artists' fancies, Rubens and Raphaels, and Correg- 
gios and VanDykes and Velasquezs by the score, Ghiberti's 
bronze doors of white metal, of which Michael Angelo said 
they were worthy to be the gates of Paradise; Giotto's 
Campanile, the most beautiful bell-tower in the world, and 
Michael Angelo's Pieta — his last work, not quite finished, 
and his Twilight and Dawn, and Day .and Night, (not quite 



finished, and no one has ever dared to attempt their com- 
pletion,) and the tombs of the Medicis in a chapel that cost 
$4,400,000 (several hundred years ago, and tables of Mosaic 
that cost $400,000 each. Think of all these things seen in a 
single day and they only a part so small as to be hardly ex- 
pressed of all that the day and the city has held for us, and 
then think of meeting a beggar at every dozen steps. Put the 




THE MADONNA OF THE CHAIR. 



two together and Italy is before you, a land of rarest beauty 
of nature, of absolutely incomputable wealth of art, of mighty 
men in every walk of life, of fairest skies that ever lover's 
eyes looked up to, of lakes and rivers to dream of, and his- 
tory that goes back to a time when a world's Redeemer was 
hidden in the unknown purposes of God; a land where 
palaces rise on every hand, and churches dot each square 
mile, rich in their furnishings as the dream of avarice, yet 



A\ant is everywhere obtrusive, and the tourist sheds pennies 
at every step, or feels himself untrue to his hitherto firmly 
expressed belief in the universal brotherhood of man. 

But let it be known this poverty is not of the hopeless 
kind. If the night is dark, the coming day will be fair. Re- 
fuse a whining suppliant, and unless he be one of the many 
half imbeciles one sees too often, he will exchange his whine 
for a laugh, and his long drawn face for a shortened, merry 
one, and hope for better luck the next carriage he assails. 
The Italians in their poverty remind me more of our South- 
ern negro. The tomorrow holds the solution of all their 
difficulties and they do not worry about the future. 

But there is a bright side, even to this picture of woe. 
With all their poverty, the Italians are neither drunken nor 
given to immorality. They all drink; wine shops outnumber 
all others, but it is a pony of cognac, and a cup of black 
coffee, or a glass of marsola, or a dash of vermouth in a pint 
of seltzer, and the wife or the sweetheart is alongside, and 
there is a roll or a bun to eat, and much conversation, and 
three cents is all it costs. I have not seen a real drunken 
fellow in Italy. The street walker is unknown, and I have 
yet to see girl or woman respond to a stranger's glance, or 
pok back at a passing man. Illegitimacy is not so great as 
in austere Scotland. 

These latter remarks do not apply to Naples, but it must 
be understood that in Naples one finds a different people with 
different customs and almost a distinct language. - It is in 
Naples and south of it that the vendetta and the Mafia have 
existence — there and in Corsica, and Italy must not be judged 
by Neapolitans and Corsicans. The lowest class we have 
seen anywhere was in Naples, and there one can hardly take 
a single step without being assailed by a women or her tout, a 
seller of obscene goods, or a peddler whose persistence is only 
equalled by his dishonesty. I am writing now of the lower 
class — the better class of Neapolitans are equal to the better 

"3 



class elsewhere, but the poorer people are as distinct from the 
poorer people of northern Italy as though they did not dwell 
on the same continent. 

The Italian men are comparatively small, but many of 
them good looking, while the women are full sized, magnifi- 
cently formed and we believe a greater percentage of them 
handsomer than can be found in any other country. Their 
eyes and their complexions are their chief charms. Like all 
dwellers in warm countries the women age rapidly, and a girl 
of 14 has the face of a women of 20. Take it all in all, Italy 
is the finest land we have seen, the most interesting in its 
scenery, its palaces and churches, and in its art, incomparable. 
We will dream of this land in days and nights to come, and 
long to revisit it. As I close this letter, sitting by my win- 
dow overlooking the Lung Arno, or way of the river, the 
scene is one of rare interest. The setting sun is gilding the 
west, the river is burnished as by some wondrous polisher of 
copper, the walk is lined with pedestrians, the roadway is 
thronged with vehicles returning with their occcupants from 
the races, which opened at 4 this afternoon. A prince has 
just passed and every hat is off. His drivers and footmen 
are rich in red livery; an army notable shines in gold trap- 
pings, while the prince is dressed as plainly as myself. A 
pleasant looking fellow — I wonder what he thinks of the 
future? These be troublous times for those who play at roy- 
alty. Priests in their gowns, soldiers in blue and soldiers 
in white, brothers of the monastery in brown, and women in 
all the colors of the rainbow, are passing in a procession that 
seems endless. I shall let this suffice for the present and go 
and mingle with the crowd. If you see my mother-in-law or 
our hired girl, tell them to keep the coffee pot on and have 
some cold baked beans on hand. When we get home we're 
going to kiss the family all around, hug the cat and then 
make a break for the pantry. Just now we would rather see 
a good square Butler County meal than another palace, or 
something painted by Raphael, or carved by Michael Angelo. 

114 




THE CHAMPS ELYSGE, PARIS 




Mimv 







THE PLACE DE LA CO N CO R D E.~ PA R IS 
"5 



frnixthzv Jitter frxnu tto (Eiig rrf FlmuBrs. 



The atmosphere of Florence is historic, artistic and 
romantic as no other city in Italy. The very name of it 
brings to one's mind Savonarola, Romola and Dante, Michael 
Angelo, Petrarch, Galileo, Boccaccio, Leonardo deVinci, and 
Benvenuto Cellini, the wonderful worker in metals, for these 
latter seven were born here, and the whole city is covered 
with priceless specimens of the work of the artists of 
the group. 

The central spot and general gathering place of Florence 
is the Piazza del Gran Ducca, and here rises the Pallazzo 
Vecchio, a massive building with great projecting battle- 
ments and a tall medieval watch-tower over three hundred 
and fifty feet high, rising at one corner. In its square is an 
equestrian statue of Cosimo I, and the Fountain of Neptune, 
with the god in his car drawn by sea-horses, with sea-gods, 
nymphs and tritons sporting about in the basin. This foun- 
tain stands on the spot of Savonarola's martyrdom, for here 
that priest, patriot and prophet, and would-be civil ruler of his 
country, was hanged and burned, together with his co-adjutors, 
Fra Domenicho and Fra Salvestro. Today the bust of 
Saronarola is seen everywhere, and his monument is almost 
a shrine. Such is the fate of those who dare to step ahead 
of the masses. There was a time when this priest could 
have led all Tuscany against the world ; he was easily the 
greatest Florentine, even when the Medicis were most power- 
ful ; his appearance on the streets was the signal for an 
ovation. There were times when Savonarola preaching 
against extravagance and pleading for primitive simplicity, 
had himself almost hidden in the pile of jewels, ornaments, 

116 



paintings, rare books and statues that the nobility and people 
threw at his feet to be burned. Strangely given to prophesy- 
ing — more strangely yet, his prophesies nearly always came 
true. But the reaction came. Perhaps the people — Floren- 
tines have always been politically fickle — hankered for the 
flesh-pots once more, and its great priest who, whatever his 
faults, had never enriched himself at the expense of his follow- 
ers, living always in the simplest manner, was accused of 
treason against, the Pope, people, or perhaps against the 
Medicis, and so they built the gallows and the funeral pyre, 
and on the 23rd of May, 1498, as great and pure a soul as 
the Catholic Church ever had in its fold, slipped through the 
smoke of the cruel fire to its maker. 

This public square which witnessed the martyrdom of 
the priests is a rarely interesting spot to visit, especially in the 
early evening. All classes of Florentines make this their 
meeting point, and a grander place for the gathering of friends 
does not exist. On one side is the Loggia dei Lanza, a 
grand arcade looking like a house with two lower stories set 
far back, and this forming a great arched portico. This is 
where one waits for his friend or looks out into its square at 
the people and vehicles crowded together. The portico has 
a wondrous wealth of art in it. Here is Cellini's colossal 
statue of Perseus, with the head of Medusa, perhaps the finest 
treatment of the subject known to the art world ; a magnifi- 
cent marble group — the Rape of the Sabines, Hercules slay- 
ing a centaur, Judith slaying Holofernes, and the dying Ajax. 
Also six colossal female statues, and a pair of magnificent lions. 

This oddly placed collection of master-pieces has held 
our attention for an hour as we are on our way to perhaps 
the richest collection of art in the world, that of the Uffizi 
gallery, the collection of the Medici family, and the added 
wealth of the Pitti Palace, connected with the Uffizi gallery 
by a private bridge over the river Arno, the bridge being a 
great gallery 1602 feet long lined with portraits. 

117 



The Uffizi Palace is of necessity, an immense building, 
for in addition to its many rooms of paintings and sculptures, 
it contains the national library, with 200,000 volumes and 
14,000 manuscripts, among the latter being 300 volumes of 
the letters and papers of Galileo. Of the art wonders of the 
Uffizi gallery it is impossible to write anything like a full 
account in letters like these. A good sized volume could be 
filled with the simple titles of the works displayed. Suffice 
it to say that there are examples of almost every painter or 
sculpter of note, and many of the masterpieces of the kings 
of art. Of the twenty-five rooms filled with wonders, the 
Tribune room will give an idea of the total. Here stands 
the Venus de Medici — the finest work of antique art in the 
world. It was found in the sixteenth century on the site of 
Adrian's villa at Tivoli. The grace of attitude, the beauty of 
the face, as well as its pure expression, and the perfect sym- 
metry of the figure, are faultless. This is one of the works 
of art that cannot be understood or appreciated in a single 
visit. As Roger's says, 

"We must return, and once more give a loose 
To the delighted spirit — worshipping, 
In her small temple of rich workmanship, 
Venus herself, who when she left the skies, 
Came hither." 

For the sake of the ladies who may be interested in the 
old Greek idea as to what size of woman made the ideally 
perfect form, I would say that the Venus is just five feet, two 
inches high, and evidently had never worn a corset. Near 
the Venus stands the young Apollo, of the school of Praxiteles, 
its neighbor, the Venus, being attributed to Cleomenes. Op- 
posite this is the Wrestlers, a wonderful anatomical study 
where the straining sinews and swelling muscles show as per- 
fectly as though each figure was that of a living man engaged 
in a life and death struggle. One of the most perfect statues- 
in the world now enchains the attention. It is that of the 

118 



Slave who, while sharpening a knife, overhears the conspira- 
tors. It is hard to believe that in a moment he will not step 
out of the stone into which he has been turned by the terrible 
purpose of the men he has accidently overheard, and rush to 
his master with the story. The Dancing Faun is the other 
sculptural masterpiece of the Tribune. This has been re- 
stored by Michael Angelo, but is not as fine a piece of work 
as the Faun at Rome, which gave Hawthorne his idea for his 
marvelous story. 

On the walls of this wonderful room hang forty paintings, 
and while all are masterpieces of great artists, the bulk of the 
forty are the work of Titian, Guido Reni, Vandyke, Raphael, 
Domenichino, (whose Last Confession of St. Jerome, in the 
Vatican is the second greatest painting in the world, 
Raphael's Transfiguration of Christ, standing opposite, being 
easily the first,) Correggio, Perugino, Fra Bartolomrneo, 
Carracci, Paul Veronese, Michael Angelo, Rubens, Durer, 
VanLeyden and Guercino. As will be noticed the paintings 
are of all schools and ages, and hung without any attempt 
at arrangement, but a day in this one room is all too short 
for the proper enjoyment of the feast offered. 

The Uffizi Palace is entirely filled with paintings and 
sculptures in addition to the national library mentioned above. 
In one room stands the " Mater Dolorosa of ancient art" — 
the great group of Niobe and her children, discovered near 
the gate of St Paul (Porta S. Paola), Rome, in 1583. 
Shelley said of this statue : "This figure of Niobe is prob- 
ably the most consummate personification of loveliness with 
regard to its countenance, as that of Apollo of the Vatican is 
with regard to its entire form, that remains to us of Greek 
antiquity." The entire work seems to bring the fable into 
life and action before you. One such piece of art is enough 
to make a nation wealthy. 

In the Pitti Palace, in addition to its rare collection of 
statues and paintings, there are rooms filled with works of 

119 



art of all the ancient peoples ; Etruscan and Egyptian vases, 
etc., rare carvings and cabinets, and the finest examples of 
Florentine mosaic work in the world. One table, about the 
size of the one on which this letter is written, occupied many 
men for fourteen years, and is said to have cost $600,000. 

The Pitti Palace, in addition to being a great art gallery, 
is one of the many homes of the Emperor, perhaps in all the 
finest palace he possesses. To describe the decorations and 
furnishings of the various rooms would be impossible, but as 
we visited nearly all of the Emperor's palaces, we are ready 
to admit that this one would be entirely satisfactory to the 
Duchess and myself, if Umberto thinks of giving us a palace. 
It is said that the head that wears the crown lies uneasy, but 
I'll swear it isn't the fault of the beds or the bedding, for 
such silks and laces, and softness of pillow and couch were a 
revelation to us. It was all the courier could do to keep me 
from taking a snooze in one of the beds covered with gold 
and jewels, and upholstered in laces and yellow silk. It 
beats anything in the St. Charles Hotel — and that's saying a 
good deal. 

But do you know that the Duchess and I are really get- 
ting tired of art galleries and palaces? Just as one can get a 
surfeit of apple dumplings and good old American pumpkin 
pie, so the eye can get satiated with beauty. In all America 
there is nothing to approach one of these galleries or palaces, 
in richness. Take our museums of art. They are invari- 
ably bare, whitewashed walls, on which paintings are hung 
in more or less good taste. Here the rooms are works of art, 
even if no canvass were on the walls. The ceilings are 
wonders in carving, frescoing and golden decoration, and the 
walls are all covered with richness, even behind the huge 
canvasses. It was in Florence that Mark Twain got mad 
and killed a beggar, because, as he said, he was so exasperated 
at the idea of their begging tourists for centessimis where they 
had only to break into the tomb of the Medicis or one of 



these great palaces, and steal enough to surround them with 
luxury for life. And it does seem as if Italy in acquiring its 
incalculable wealth of art and palaces and churches, must 
have mortgaged the future welfare of its people for centuries. 
Poverty everywhere and riches unspeakable as omnipresent. 
Of the churches of Florence I shall write nothing — 
much. Churches are getting to be a drug on the market 
with us. Florence has even more than its share of great 
ones. The Pantheon of Florence is the church of San Croce, 




CHURCH OF SAN CROCE. 



most striking in appearance because of its facade, or front, 
of black and white marble, alternating in stripes. This 
church has many fine frescoes by Giotto, but they were only 
discovered lately, as during the early troubles in Florence, 
some priest fearing their destruction, entirely covered them 
with whitewash, and forgot to leave any mention of the fact 
in his papers when he was promoted to the church above. 
Here are the magnificent tombs of Galileo, Michael Angelo, 
Machiavelli, Raphael Lanzi, Cherubini, Foscolo, and mon- 
uments to Dante and Alfieri. Of this church Byron wrote: 



"In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 

Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 

Even in itself an immortality, 

Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 

The particle of those sublimities 

Which have relapsed to chaos: — here repose 

Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, 

The starry Galileo, with his woes : 

Here Machiavelli's earth, return'd to whence it rose. " 

The principal church of the city is the cathedral of Sta. Maria 
del Fiore — St. Mary of the Lily — this flower being the stand- 
ard of Florence. The church was begun in 1298 by Combio, 
who was instructed to build "the loftiest, most sumptuous 
edifice that human invention could devise, or human labor 
execute." Of course be died before he finished the job. 
These great Italian churches take centuries to finish, and 
many of them commenced as far back as this one are not yet 
completed. This church is by no means up to the orders 
given the architect, but it is nevertheless one of the greatest 
churches in the world. Its front is not worthy the edifice — 
it being a poor piece of modern work — Giotto's facade, on 
which many of the best sculptors of the time were employed 
between 1575 and 1587. The church is striking in appear- 
ance, because of the precious and vari-colored marbles with 
which its exterior is encrusted, but the inside is bare and 
chilling. But the Florentines take pride in the fact that the 
cupola is the largest in the world — which is the truth — it be- 
ing greater than that of St. Peter's at Rome, but the church 
being so much smaller than St. Peter's, the effect is not so 
great. It was this cupola that gave Angelo the idea for the 
one on St. Peter's, and making the proportions of church and 
dome perfect, he was enabled to give Rome the ecclesiastical 
wonder of the world. 

Alongside the cathedral is Giotto's Campanile or bell- 
tower, the most beautiful one on earth. Ruskin says that, 
"The characteristics of power and beauty occur more or less 



in different buildings, some in one and some in another. 
But all together, and all in their highest possible relative 
degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building in 
the world, the Campanile of Giotto." This bell-tower is 42 
feet square, and 269 feet high, and was begun in 1334. It 
is four stories of pure marble and covered with most intricate 
and delicate tracery, and enriched with numerous statues. 
Standing alongside the Duomo, or cathedral, and opposite 
the beautiful Baptistery, it helps to make the square one of the 
noblest in the world. The Baptistery is a smaller circular 
building, coated with marble, and richly decorated within 
and without. Its date is uncertain, and it is believed to have 
been once a temple of Mars. Its greatest beauties are the 
south gates of bronze, executed in 1330 by Andrea Pisano, 
representing scenes in the life of John the Baptist; the north- 
ern gates by Ghiberti in 1401, and the eastern gates of the 
same artist, executed in 1446 to 1456. It was these eastern 
gates that caused Michael Angelo to say, "They are worthy 
to be the gates of Paradise." Their equal in beauty does 
not exist. 

But enough has been said of the great buildings. Out- 
side of these churches and palaces Florence seems to be in 
its general architecture -one of the most modern Italian cities, 
yet it was founded by the Romans before Christ, and has had 
a rough and eventful history. It was ravaged by the barbar- 
ians, but rose again, and in 1100 was one of the greatest com- 
mercial cities of the old world. Civil conflicts and foreign 
wars were carried on for centuries, and in 1434 the Medici 
family took hold of the city, and, in fact, of all Tuscany, and 
ruled with an iron hand till 1737, when the Medici blood 
seems to have entirely run out. The duke of the house of 
Lorraine then came to the front holding sway until i860, 
when the unification of Italy took place. From 1864 to 1870 
Florence was the capital of the new nation. The city stands 
in a narrow plain, partly surrounded by the Appenines and 

123 



their foot hills, and cut in two by the river Arno. Across the 
river from the main part of the city we drove through mag- 
nificent streets and past almost royal private residences to 
the Piazza Michael Angelo, a great square, marble paved, 
on an immense height from which the whole surrounding 
country can be seen, with the city spread out at one's feet. 
Opposite, a few miles away, on the foot hill stands the fast 
dying city of Fiesole, once a great place in Italian history, 
having in the midst of its decaying edifices a magnificent 
cathedral and palace. It was to Fiesole that Cataline fled 
from Rome after his conspiracy. History, possibly apocry- 
phal, says that Attila once destroyed Florence and rebuilt 
Fiesole. Dante speaks of the latter place as the cradle of 
Florence. In another direction we look up to the valley and 
fourteen miles away fancy we see Valambrosa — from where 
we get the frequently used expression, "As thick as leaves 
in Valambrosa's shades." 

Along the river lies the public park, the Cascine — three 
miles in length, and perhaps a quarter of a mile in width, 
and made beautiful by a combination of nature and art. On 
the Sunday we were in Florence the annual races came off 
in the race grounds near the Cascine, and over 100,000 
people attended them, yet there was no disturbance whatever. 
Seated in our rooms at the hotel on the banks of the Arno, 
the Duchess and I watched the people returning from the 
races. All manner of vehicles had been called into requi- 
sition, from the magnificent turnout of some prince of an old 
family to the donkey cart of the peddler, and prince and 
peasant, priest and pauper rode side by side, quietly and 
decorously, as if race going on the Sabbath were as much a 
part of the duty of living as church going. 

Much of the pleasure of a visit to Florence lies in visit- 
ing the stores and shops. No finer ones are to be found in 
any city, and the number of places where mosaics, paintings 
and statues are on sale is legion. The beauty of the modern 

124 



sculptures offered to tourists is beyond any power to express. 
Store after store is filled with pieces each of which seems to 
be the work of a master, yet the prices range from $20 to 
$100 for full sized specimens of the finest Carrara marble. 
Some of the statues of children are as beautiful as anything 
seen in our great expositions at home, and $30 will purchase 
a piece that any American sculptor would charge a thousand 
dollars for. This is due perhaps to the fact that most of them 
are replicas or duplicates, and are the work of ordinary em- 
ployees under the master's eye. But they all are as perfect 
as though it was a Powers or an Ezekiel from whose studio 
they came. Florence was for thirty years the home of Hiram 
Powers, and his son still lives here — a Florentine of Floren- 
tines, but an American to the heart's core for all that. 

The Florentine mosaic work is another attraction for the 
tourist. This is a delicate inset of various colored stones in 
a black stone background, and is of all sizes, from small ovals 
for earrings and broaches to table tops and pieces that are 
copies of the great paintings of the world. There are whole 
streets given up to the making and selling of this work. For 
one or two lires, twenty or forty cents, we can get a small pin 
or a paper weight, but the work is coarse. But the finer 
pieces are so perfectly executed as to compel the use of a 
magnifying glass to discern that the design is really mosaic 
work and not painting upon a black background. This work 
costs several dollars for a small breastpin, up to thousands of 
dollars for the larger pieces. Of course the Duchess and I 
invested in these beautiful things, as did the rest of our 
party, and after examining each others purchases in the com- 
fortable sitting rooms of our hotel, we all fell to worrying, 
as usual, as to how we were going to get all our souvenirs 
through the custom house at New York. We have become 
callous to the danger of such examinations in these countries, 
because we have learned the power of small pieces of silver 
judiciously applied; but we fear the ordeal at home. The 

125 



jewelry stores and shops for the sale of photographs of places 
of interest, also occupy our attention for hours, and at the 
same time compel us to visit the banks pretty frequently for 
advances on our letters of credit and cash on our cheque 
book checks. But Europe isn't visited every year, and these 
bits of mosaic and quaint pieces of jewelry and souvenir spoons 
and photographs will have interest for ourselves and friends 
in the years to come. 

But I must close this letter, it is too long already, and I 
have treated Florence in a very sober manner. This could 
not be helped, for Florence with its wealth of beauty impress- 
es one so; its story is one with more shadows than lights all 
along the centuries. One cannot help but think of Savon- 
arola and his martyrdom, of Galileo and his thirty years of 
rest in unconsecrated ground without the city, before they 
brought his sacred dust with all manner of pomp and display 
to the cool and quiet of San Croce. The story of Romola 
and the rythm of Casa Guidi Windows steal in upon one's 
mind, and he thinks of the flowered walks in the Protestant 
cemetery where the poetess rests in the earth of her beloved 
Italy — she whose song had much to do with making it free — 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Near her Theodore Parker 
and Arthur Clough, and that great master of fine English, 
Walter Savage Landor, sleep the last sleep, and all these 
things have their influence, and we must write of Florence, 
rich in art and architecture, the beauties of nature and of 
man, and of memories that touch the sober side of thought 
in quiet and reverential mood. Even Mark Twain in his 
Innocents Abroad dealt more soberly with Florence than with 
most of the cities he visited on that memorable trip. If the 
Lord shall permit the Duchess and I to cross the waters 
again, much of our time shall be spent in Florentia — city of 
flowers and flower of cities. And thus we bid farewell for 
the present, and look ahead to the journey of the morrow, 
which we shall break for a night's rest at Bologna, and then 

126 



on to the city ot dre.ims since first we began to read of the 
great world and its wonders — Venice — the Bride of the 
Adriatic. 







OUR HOTEL AT VENICE. 



Mr. Beauchamp's travels in Switzerland, Germany, 
Ireland, Belgium, and his second trip to France and England, 
will appear in a subsequent volume. 



127 



kau %. Ikcutrlinmp. 



During the last few weeks the citizens of Dayton, Ohio, 
have had the pleasure of listening to a number of addresses 
from Mr. Lou J. Beauchamp, of Hamilton, Ohio. He was 
here under the auspices of the Ministerial Association of this 




LOU J. BEAUCHAMP. 



city, to awaken an interest on the subject of "good citizen- 
ship." As our young people's societies elsewhere may want 
something on this phase of their work, we present a picture 
of Mr. Beauchamp and a brief sketch of his life. 



129 



He was born in Cincinnati, January 14, 185 1. His 
earlier life was spent on steamboats on the river and in the 
Arkansas country. His schooldays ended when about four- 
teen years of age. He learned the printing business in Ham- 
ilton, Ohio, and worked on the same paper with which W. 
D. Howellsand Lewis Campbell were once connected. After 
three years he came to Dayton, and worked on a paper con- 
trolled by Mr. Vallandigham. He spent about fifteen years 
in connection with newspaper work. 

This kind of schooling was not good for a boy's morals. 
The associations of this kind of life led him to drinking, and 
he indulged very freely. He was sober but little of the time. 
His life became so reckless that when about twenty-three 
years of age he attempted suicide. He had lost his place 
through drink, did not want to go home, and thought a pistol- 
ball would end his troubles. He still carries that ball within 
him, as a memento of his folly. Twice he sought to take 
his life with poison. But God had a work for him to do. 

He was caught by a reform movement and converted to 
Christ. Now and then an invitation came to him to make an 
address on temperance. He consented, and developed re- 
markable power. In America, Canada, Nova Scotia, England, 
and Scotland he has spoken over 5,000 times. During 
the eighteen years he has been at work he has induced over 
400,000 persons to sign the total-abstinence pledge. He 
spoke on forty-seven continuous nights in San Jose, Cal., and 
the audiences increased everywhere. 

The liquor power have found in him a foeman worthy 
of their steel, and they would like to have him out of the 
way. Three times have attempts been made on his life. 
Once, at Greenville, Alabama, a mob of forty or more, led 
by the mayor, who was a saloon-keeper, attacked him in the 
early morning, as he was about to take the train. The glare 
of the headlight as the train pulled in helped to save his life. 
He knew the matter would get into the papers, and at the 

130 



first opportunity he sent a telegram to his wife, assuring her 
of his safety ; and the plucky little woman answered back, 
" Trust in God, increase your life insurance, and hit them 
harder than ever." 

Mr. Beauchamp is always at work. He is having calls 
from all parts of the country, and more than he can fill. His 
newspaper experience gave him a good knowledge of human 
nature, with a warm heart for the victims of strong drink, for 
he was at one time one of them. He knows how to go after 
these unfortunates and to bring them back into a better life. 
At the same time he deals frankly and plainly with the cold- 
hearted church-member who is willing to sacrifice his fellow- 
countryman and the cause of Christ that his party may be 
kept in power. He is an earnest, able, effective speaker, 
possessing a keen intellectual perception and a warm, Chris- 
tian heart. He is preaching the true gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and we wish him a still more abundant success. 
— Rev.H. A. Thompson, in "Children's Friend." 







131 



The Tmtm nf Enbtwtlk. 



It's the dearest town, the fairest town, the prettiest town to me, 

Of all the towns in all the lands, this side or cross the sea ; 

It's sunshine there, and moonshine there, and starshine all the time, 

And it's never cold, and none get old, in it's lovely summer clime ; 

There's never a ghost or a goblin there, and sin was never known, 

And no one ever had a pain, or heard a neighbor groan, 

And the birds sing always, night and day, in fact they're never still, 

In this airy, fairy, darling place, the Town of Babyville. 

The stores are full of sweetmeats, and they're sold for just a song, 

The hobby-horses in the streets are free the whole day long; 

The band plays every afternoon, there's fire-works every night, 

And all the babies toddle out to see the glorious sight. 

You kiss them as you meet them, and they kiss you when you go, 

And clap their hands, and laugh with glee, to see you at their show ; 

The doctor died last summer, and is resting o'er the hill, 

For none get sick, they haven't time, in the Town of Babyville. 

The houses are of gingerbread, the fences are of cake ; 
The river's full of lemonade, and a big panada lake ; 
You eat whenever hungry, and you drink whenever dry, 
And pay your board in kisses, — that surely isn't high ; 
But if you want to live there you have to pay a toll. 
Some pay it very readily, some can't, to save their soul ; 
It's not in gold or silver, nor yet a paper bill, 
It's just to bring a baby to the Town of Babyville. 

You can live with us forever, if a baby comes along, 

We want another sunny face, another voice in song, 

For we all sing in our village, from the book of Mother Goose, 

And it takes a babe to teach you how to let your voice out loose ; 

So if you think of coming, just send your name along, 

And tell us when the baby came, and if it's well and strong, 

And tell us when to meet you, we'll be waiting by the mill, 

And the band will play you welcome to the Town of Babyville. 

God bless us all, and keep us, what heavy hearts there'd be 

If all these little darlings should be lost to you and me ; 

There would never be a sunny day in all the wide, wide land, 

And all the skies above us, with clouds could but be spanned ; 

But God is good, stop worrying, and join me in a song, 

Here's love, and life, and sunshine to the babies, weak and strong, 

Let's cuddle down beside them, and rest content, until 

God calls us all to Heaven, from the Town of Babyville. 

132 



^ Strang? (Ear^r. 

HOW LOU BEAUCHAMP'S WIFE SAVED HIM FROM 

A drunkard's GRAVE. 



Below we give an excerpt from the Youngstown (Ohio) 
News-Register, concerning Lou J. Beauchamp. It was written 
by an attache of that paper who has been familiar with Lou's 
life from his earliest days. For years past Mr. Beauchamp 
has been on the temperance platform, and no man stands 
higher in the work. As a speaker he is full of that subtle 
magnetism that takes hold upon an audience, compelling 
attention from first to last. His logic and argument is pre- 
sented in the shape of illustrations that fasten themselves 
upon the mind, while his wit and humor is bright and spark- 
ling. So popular is he as a speaker, that in many cities he 
has spoken as often as fifty times during the past few years, 
always drawing immense audiences and winning men by 
hundreds from their cups, and the citizens generally to the 
support of the work. He is the author of several popular 
books, "Sunshine" being the best known, it having an im- 
mense sale in every State of the Union. His home at Ham- 
ilton, O., is a veritable haven of rest for Lou and his family 
and friends, and is filled with fine paintings, pictures and 
articles of beauty gathered from the whole world. His li- 
brary numbers nearly 2,000 volumes of the best literature, and 
whenever Lou is at home he is to be found among his books 
and pictures, with his wife and son Earl beside him. 



Lou J. Beauchamp, one of the visiting delegates of the 
Grand Temple of Honor, has had a remarkable history. His 



i33 



father was one of the most skillful physicians in Southern 
Ohio. Lou grew up in the little town of Hamilton as the son 
of a prosperous and respected citizen. His early advantages 
were the best that could be secured. He was admired and 
respected by every one. No social gathering was complete 
without him. He was a natural born elocutionist, and to 
cultivate these talents was the delight of his soul. His ability 
as a writer was unsurpassed, and for years during his early 
life he was the spirit of the old Butler county democrats. 
Before his thoughts had crystalized into the beauty which 
was promised he became intemperate. His life led him into 
temptation, and his decline was rapid. In a few years he 
became a sot, an outcast. Alcohol and opium were about 
his only food for months, and his bed was the gutter. The 
people of Hamilton who had once respected and admired 
him, now pitied him as he went about the streets begging for 
whisky. And he was then but 25 years old. The druggist, 
unable to endure the spectacle of his sufferings, was accus- 
tomed to give him drugs to relieve him. Poor Lou Beauchamp 
was the town character. Yet in his wildest moments his 
talent never forsook him. His pen was as easy and his voice 
as flexible then as when he was in his pure and better days 
before the trouble came. His elocutionary powers, when 
under the use of stimulants, were awful. The writer of this 
has heard him years ago recite the "Rum Maniac" when 
the poor fellow was himself a rum maniac, and his very blood 
would stop its flow at the effect of these words. 

In spite of his degraded condition every boy in the town 
looked up to him as a man who was in the awful thrall of a 
merciless tyrant, and the good mothers taught their sons to 
mention Lou's name in their evening orisons. The hope in 
every breast was that he might soon be released. 

One day the determination came to him. He would be 
a better man. He would live a better life. He would regain 
his former position in the city. But who would help him? 

i34 



A young women of the place, the daughter of a thrifty citizen, 
with a noble heart and a wise head was the one. She mar- 
ried the poor outcast. People were shocked at her foolish- 
ness, as they called it then. It is easy to recall the senti- 
ments of the people for the few days following the announce- 
ment. It become evident at once that Lou was in earnest. 
He was actually sober. He had been so for two days, three 
days, a whole week. He was pleasant too, and kind. He 
held his head up like a man, proud of his noble wife and of 
his own resolution. There was no religious excitement, no 
temperance revivals to give men a chance to scoff at the re- 
formed drunkard. It was a big manly act and all recognized 
it as such. 

Lou Beauchamp at once entered the temperance cause. 
In and around Hamilton he worked faithfully for two years. 
Some of the results of his work was astonishing. Men who 
had been raised from their birth on whisky, whose fathers 
tipped up the family jug to their baby lips, became and re- 
main to this day teetotalers. He soon entered into Nat- 
ional work, and has been traveling — always with his wife 
beside him— over the United States for several years. He 
is a brilliant orator, a perfect gentleman, a genuine Christian. 
No one seeing him in Youngstown to day in his manhood and 
strength, could believe that years ago he was an abandoned 
drunkard. 



**W* 




135 



TOp %pzk Babg. 



I am not sure when I Inst him, 

But I think 'twas one soft Spring day, 

When with his first tiny pair of pants 
And his cap he started away, 

To go to a school off somewhere, 
In a land where no babies play. 

I have his curls and his dresses; 

The first are as gold as the sun ; 
The latter are fragrant with perfume, 

And damp with my tears, every one. 
But they're empty, just as my heart is, 

And it seems that my life is done. 

They sent me a boy that evening 

From the school where no babies go, 

Who told me of lessons and recess 
And other boys, row after row, 

But never a word of my baby. 

And my heart's most breaking to know. 

His eyes are the eyes of my baby, 

His voice stirs the depths of my soul ; 

But there's never a curl on his forehead, 
And his stockings have never a hole; 

I can not ride him to Banbury Cross, 
And take all his kisses for toll. 

God help me ! I've lost my one baby, 
And they've given me a boy instead. 

I've only this soft mass of ringlets 

And these dresses laid out on the bed, 

And this heart with its pain, and this bosom 
That aches for the little lost head. 

I'm proud of my boy in the schoolroom, 
God knows how I love him today; 

But I'd give half my life at this moment 
For a kiss from the babe gone away — 

Gone away to the country of knowledge 
In the land where no babies play. 

Oh, boys, climbing life's great mountain, 
Come back, when you can, with a smile 

And a kiss for the lone hearts that love you, 
But mourn for the babes all the while. 

"Cuddle doon" on their breasts as you used to 
'Twill cheer them through many a trial. 

136 



The Start) of -The yttle Wnmun." 

WRITTEN BY LOU J. BEAUCHAMP IN 1 887. 

I see the papers are full just now of tributes to the glori- 
ous womanhood of Mrs. John A. Logan, and of anecdotes 
of her help to her husband during his years of struggle. 
This reminds me that on the last day of this month I hope to 




THE LITTLE WOMAN. 



be by the side of a little woman up in Hamilton, Ohio, who 
just ten years ago on this same day of this same month, took 
me for better or for worse, and the chances were altogether 
for the "worse." For seven years I had been in the depths, 



i37 



and the doors of home and hearts had been closed against 
me for many months. I had drank myself out of every pos- 
ition I had held in the newspaper profession, and although my 
love for the little woman was great, I feared that she would 
only reap in tears what she was sowing in faith and courage. 

We had just ten dollars between us when we faced the 
world that first day as man and wife. And then commenced 
a hard fight — on her part as on mine. There were days 
when bread was scarce —well, those days we lived on kisses. 
There were nights when fuel was "nonest" — we sat closer 
together then, and twined our arms about each other as our 
hearts were twined. We had no one to go to for help but 
the good Lord, and he never closed his ears against us. He 
heard every cry and answered every prayer. By and by the 
"little man" came. He was a very little man — he only 
weighed three pounds. I remember I was grateful for that, 
for I thought it would be cheaper and easier to care for three 
pounds of baby than for ten or twelve pounds, and I felt the 
Lord had sent us a small one to fit our fortunes. I used to 
start out every morning after a hasty breakfast on bread, 
cheese and kisses, and make the rounds of the newspaper 
offices and see if there was not some bit of writing I could 
get to do, and I generally found a bit before the last dime 
was gone, and then for a few days everything was bright. 

About this time temperance meetings were all around 
us, and friends used to say a kind word for me, and I got 
invitations to speak near our home. I don't think the 
speeches were very good ; but they were at least earnest and 
sincere and from the heart. I could tell the drinkers the 
misery they were going to, for I had drank the cup of shame 
to the dregs, and I could also tell them how much more 
life was worth the living since I had stopped drinking. The 
first lecture I gave I shall never forget. I kept as much of 
my person hid behind the pulpit as I could, lest my worn 
and torn but neatly mended clothes should be seen, and 

138 



when I was through, and a full hundred signed the pledge, I 
felt as if I was beginning to be of some use again in the 
world. And then a big, sober-faced deacon rose and moved 
that "a collection be taken up for the young brother." I 
had borrowed eighty cents to pay my fare to the place, and I 
had expected a collection, but when it was mentioned I broke 
out in profuse perspiration. I wondered if they would get 
enough to pay back that eighty cents, and I prayed that they 
would, and they did — and forty-nine cents more. And when 
they gave it all to me, $1.29, I just sat down and cried. It 
was the first money I had earned fighting my old enemy, 




SUNSHINE COTTAGE. 

and it looked like a fortune. I could hardly wait for morn- 
to come, to get home and lay my 49 cents in the lap of the 
''little woman." But morning came at last, and I got home 
and gave the money to the one I loved best in all the world, 
and we had a little thanksgiving then and there. Oh, how I 
did want to keep it as a souvenir, but I could not; we need- 
ed flour and bacon (we were a long way off from porter-house 
steak then); and so it was wisely expended, and I don't think 
I ever ate a better meal in my life than the one earned by 

•39 



my first lecture. Since then I have several times got $100 
for a single lecture — a literary or humorous one — but no 
money I have earned since looked quite so big and worthy as 
that little handful of pennies and nickels I got nearly ten 
years ago in Somerville, Ohio. 

Well, the days made weeks and the weeks made months 
and the months m ide years, and the little woman, the little 
man and I grew along with them, and the good Lord was 




THE MUSIC ROOM IN SUNSHINE COTTAGE. 

giving me friends and a good name, and m<re and more 
engagements and greater power to speak; and the time came 
by and by when we could lie down at night and feel no fear 
for the morrow; when we knew there was enough in store 
and a little for the poor fellows who asked for "just a bit" 
at the back door. And after a while we were able to buy 

140 



some furniture and some tableware and some pictures, and 
commence home building. And it was all due to the busi- 
ness tact and the courage of the " little woman." 

One day a publisher came to me and said: "Lou, if you 
will write the story of your life, I'll print it and have it bound, 
and it will sell in your meetings, and you can make some 
money." And I saw it was a wise suggestion, for my life 
had been full of romance, full of ups and downs, of gloom 




THE LIBRARY IN SUNSHINE COTTAGE. 

and sorrow, and of sunshine and joy at the last, and I quick- 
ly agreed to it, and hurried home to tell the little woman of 
our good luck. And what do you think she said? 

"Lou, you will do nothing of the kind. The man is 
insignificant as compared to his cause. Your life has no 
place in this great temperance movement. Sit down and 
write a book against strong drink. Tell of its power to curse 

141 



and of the power of sobriety to open the doors of fortune, 
fame and sunshine. Talk to the boys on your hobby of self- 
education in the spare hours, on the dignity and manliness 
of labor, and how to save the pennies, and what to do with 
them when they are saved. And then put in some chapters 
on your other hobby — sunshine at home, and how to make 
homes so happy and bright that the temptations of the cities 
cannot win husbands and sons away into danger and death." 

And I took the advise of the "little woman," and I 
wrote "Sunshine," and the profits of "Sunshine" have 
enabled me to buy a little cottage home — "Sunshine Cot- 
tage"; and I gave it, just at it stands, as a birthday present 
to the little lady whose courage and faith and trust in God 
have made a man of me. 

And on the 31st of March I hope to stand by her side 
and welcome, in our little home, the friends who have stood 
by us and helped us fight the good fight. And I ask the 
many thousand readers of The Voice to ask God to continue 
his blessings of life and happiness and sunshine upon the 
little woman who has made me, under him, what I am to- 
day, and upon the "little man," who must develop into a 
great, good man under the teachings of such a mother, and 
upon myself. 



Jfc Bit of (Sheer. 

Never mind the clouds, dear, never mind the rain ; 
Trust in God and look ahead; the sun will shine again — 
Singing after sorrow, and good health after pain ; 
Sow the seed, and after a while comes the golden grain ; 
Sow the seed of happiness when all the skies are bright; 
If the clouds come lowering down, laugh them out of sight. 
Never mind the wind, though it whistles loud and long ; 
Whistle up a tune yourself, and then break out in song; - 
Laugh away your troubles, and pray away your cares ; 
That's the way, my sweetheart, to climb the golden stairs. 

142 



HUv Small Tzarhrr, 



OR THE STORY OF THE LITTLE MAN. 



Have you yet reached that point in your life where your 
stock of knowledge seems to you pitifully meagre ? Then 
you have just gotten to where you really begin to learn. I 
used to think I knew a great deal, and was astonished, as 




THE LITTLE MAN. 



the boys were at Goldsmith's teacher, that "one small head" 
could hold so much. But I am getting bravely over my 
youthful egotism, and am learning faster than ever before in 
my life. And who do you think my teacher is? That 
"little man" reared by "the little woman" of whom The 

H3 



Voice readers have read, and concerning whom I have 
gotten so many kind letters since I told our life-story in 
these columns. 

Now, it does seem strange that a little man who wears 
short trousers, a sailor jacket, and hat, should be a teacher of 
a grown man who, for years past, has presumed to teach 
other grown men by pen and voice ; but it's a fact, neverthe- 
less, and I have formulated it as follows : "A six-year-old 
boy or girl can make father a better-educated man and 
mother a better-informed woman." 

The way I found out how excellent a teacher my boy 
was, was when he began to come home from school and ask 
questions. You know, of course, that way back in the dark 
ages some empty-headed old fool declared that "children 
should be seen and not heard," and thought that he had 
produced a maxim that had in it the concentrated wisdom of 
the ages from Solomon to himself. And foolish humanity 
accepted the saying, and deliberately threw away one of its 
surest ways of getting wisdom, by hermetically sealing the 
mouths of the babes and sucklings. 

Well, my boy would come home with a new desire for 
knowledge every day, and, of course, believed, as I did, that 
all that was necessary for him to start flowing a perfect tor- 
rent of knowledge was to tap paterfamilias. 

"Father," said the little man one day, "how is Ohio 
bounded?" 

Well, it had been so long since I had attended school 
that I failed to comprehend that the child needed the infor- 
mation for the morrow's lesson, and replied: 

" On the north by water and Kanucks, on the south by 
more water and whiskey, on the west by Hoosiers, and on 
the east by a protective tariff for pig iron," and laughed to 
myself, thinking how smart I was. 

But next day the little man came home from school cry- 
ing ; and when I asked for the cause he said : 

144 



" I got sent to the foot of my class for making a fool of 
myself." 

"Why, how could you have done that, my boy?" I 
asked, soothingly. 

" I bounded Ohio just like you told me to," he sob- 
bed out. 

And then he hunted up the atlas and got the correct 
answer without bothering his fool of a father, who was taught 
then and there that a one-horse joke which an audience will 
take from the platform, because they can't help themselves, 
won't do in the practical school-room, where hungry minds 
are fed on facts and not fancies. And I hunted up the dear 
heart and told him that if he would honor me with questions 
after such an experience I would let the philosopher answer 
them and not the fool, feeling perfectly sure about having the 
philosopher right at hand. 

The very next night my lessons began under " my small 
teacher." Coming home at his usual hour, I could see by 
his face that he was ready to tap my reservoir of knowledge, 
and I began to swell up with a sense of the great benefits I 
was about to confer on my son and heir. 

" Father," said he, " tell me about George Washington. 
I've got to have a little composition about him for Friday." 
" Well, my son, Washington once cut down a cherry 

tree, and " 

" Chestnut," cried the boy. 
" Not a chestnut, but a cherry tree," I replied. 
" Well, I know all that stuff. Tell me something about 
his life, how old he was, when he first did something for his 
country, and the offices he held, and when he was born, and 
how old he was when he died, and such things." 

" Certainly, my dear boy," I replied, beaming with pride 
in my great wisdom. "General George Washington was 

born " 

i45 



" I thought he wasn't a General till he become a man'. 
I didn't know he was born a General," said that small teach- 
er of mine. 

" Well, you are right, my boy; George Washington was 
born in — the encyclopaedia." 

" In what! " 

" I mean I can't tell you the exact date or place till I 
examine the encyclopaedia." 

And in turning its teeming pages to satisfy the desires of 
the little man, I acquired the first real knowledge of Washing- 
ton! had since I, too, was one of " those machines that ask 
questions " — a boy — and verily the boy had become teacher 
to the man. 

And so it went on in those days, and goes on now. 
And the questions my boy asks, while helpful to him, are 
just as much so to me. I never knew why the stars seemed 
to twinkle at rright till that boy wanted to know and came to 
his father for the information ; and his dunce of a father, who 
had been singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," for some- 
thing less than a century, went to the library to find 
the " why of it." 

One day he wanted to know how far the sun was from 
the earth, and for a wonder I knew, and^ongratulated myself 
that the little .man had got one answer from his father's brain 
instead of from that great set of books in the library ; for, to 
tell the truth, I was just beginning to get jealous of that 
encyclopaedia, but my self-congratulation did not last long, 
for his next question fairly paralyzed me. 

" How did anybody find out how many miles it is?" 

I sat down in anguish of spirit, and that old saying that 
a fool can ask more questions in an hour than a philosopher 
can answer in a life-time, came into my head, but was im- 
mediately followed by the further thought that fools may 
become philosophers by asking questions, and then the 
biggest fool in our family started off to the library to ask 

146 



some questions of a certain big book there. I had really 
never thought anything about how the distances between this 
earth and the other mighty bodies were obtained ; for all I 
knew, some surveyor-general had gone up in a baloon close 
enough to lasso the sun, and then getting his rope loose, had 
counted the feet and miles in it. But the big book explained 
it in an entirely different way, and I explained it to that boy. 

"You are awful smart, ain't you, papa ? " was my pay 
for my trouble, and the perspiration oozed out all over me at 
the discovery that my boy had not, as yet, discovered his 
father's right to take the highest seat in the know-nothing 
synagogue, and I replied never a word to my small teacher, 
but said softly to myself, " Yes, I am smart — smart enough 
to peddle out wisdom, as occasion requires, from the par- 
ticular shelf on which it is stored in the library." 

And sometimes that smart pedagogue teaches me with- 
out sending me to the big books. We were in Cincinnati 
late one afternoon, and I wanted to find West Third street, 
and on reaching the street that intersects Third, I stopped 
in doubt. 

"What's the matter now?" asked the miniature phi- 
losopher. 

" I don't know which way is West Third, up or down." 

" Well, don't the sun set in the West?" he asked. 

" Certainly," I answered, rather gruffly, " but what's 
that got to do with the location of the place I want to find ? " 

" Well, see where the sun is now, and that will be 
West," said the small teacher, very quietly. 

I had absolutely nothing to say, but the little man must 
have been astonished at the speed with which I hustled him 
into a drug store and ordered the clerk to fill him with soda 
water to his heart's content. 

And thus I am getting wiser day by day, but still have a 
large number of rooms to let in my upper story, rooms I 
thought had long been crowded with tenants, but which 

i47 



recent examination convinces me are filled only with cob- 
webs. The rooms can be secured at a low rental if applied 
for before my small teacher fills them. Every day he fills a 
room, teaching me something I thought I had known for 
years too many to acknowledge here, but which he makes me 
feel I never had any acquaintance with. I can tell now why 
the cracking of a whip makes a noise ; why perpetual motion 
is an impossibility; why milk turns sour; why the barometer 
fortells the weather ; why a red sunset means a bright morrow, 
and a red sunrise foul weather ; what makes the echo ; why 
the prism divides the rays of light into various colors ; why a 
cat's fur crackles when rubbed in cold weather ; why a bottle 
gives forth a gurgling sound when its contents are poured 
out, and just lots of things besides. The little man is the 
cause of all this knowledge that has come to me, and I have 
about concluded he is the best teacher I ever had. 

There are some things I don't know yet, however. I 
can't tell why fathers who have bright boys like mine will 
sell them to the saloon-keepers for a little money — paid into 
a city treasury. I can't see how fathers can take the money 
that would educate such boys into grand, helpful men, and 
give it to these licensed drink sellers, leaving the boys to be 
educated in the streets and the devilish schools of vice lining 
them. I don't know why some preachers preach that a 
license hung over a bar will take the devil, danger and death 
out of the whisky under the bar. I don't know why other 
preachers and lots of their people will keep on praying for 
the drunkard, and voting for the parties that stand by the 
traffic that makes the drunkard. 

These are some of the things I don't know. The small 
teacher himself can't understand them, but they will be an- 
swered some day. God reigns, and the Government and 
the people shall live on, and full soon be brought into the 
promised land of deliverance from the burning, blistering, 
blighting curse of curses. As I believe in God I believe 
this, and so does my small teacher. God bless him. 

148 



The "Mather's Vxvcotx. 



There's a little brown head on the pillow, 

And a face that will turn toward my own, 
Though the wings of the gentle sleep-angels 

Have ended their mission and flown. 
Two round, chubby arms are around me, 
And grasp with a passionate embrace, 
While the soft, falling dew of my baby's breath 

Comes ever into my face. 
I push back the hair from a forehead, 

Like marble, so white and so fair; 
And I feel, as I gaze on its beauty, 
No sin lines can ever rest there; 
And the eyes that are closed in slumber, 
So sparkling and bright in their play, 
Are full of a fathomless glory, 

As grand as eternity's day. 
Yet I know that earth's trials are many, 

Its ways are so full of the wrong ! 
And men have gone down into sorrow, 

In many an unnumbered throng, 
Whose lives were as full of bright promise, 

Whose faces and foreheads were fair 
As this dear one who nestles yet closer, 

While mother's lips send up a prayer — 
That the little pink feet, which keep moving 

In slumber as well as in play, 
May travel as far from earth's sorrows 

As both of them did to-day ; ' 
And that years unto years may be added 

To a life ever spotless and pure ; 
And that Death, though he come unexpected, 
May be met at the heavenly door. 

And when the great Judge, in his wisdom, 

Shall separate wrong from the right, 
And crown noble lives with glory, 

And shut evil ones out of sight, 
May the little one now on my bosom, 

Wrapped up in a mother's love, 
Nestle closer, yes, closer to Jesus, 

In the mansions of glory above. 

149 



gars it ?ag? 

Going along Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington City, 
a few days since, 1 met a friend of "auld lang syne" — one 
whom I had not seen for years. After a pleasant talk on 
old times and old friends, he questioned me as to my years 
of temperance work, and at last said to me pointedly, " Does 
it pay?" He had reference, of course, to the financial 
emoluments accruing from my efforts upon the platform, and 
I told him that my family had plenty to eat, all needful 
changes of apparel as the seasons came and went, "the little 
man " was being educated, we had a bite for the poor fellows 
who came timidly through the gate saying they were so hun- 
gry they didn't know where they were "going to sleep at 
night," and I occasionally could add a new book in cheap 
binding to my prized collection " of the best thoughts of the 
best thinkers of the best ages;" but, I added, the bank ac- 
count of "the little woman" doesn't keep us awake at nights 
(owing to the ease with which Canada can be reached now- 
adays) , and the refusal of tenants to pay rents has no worries 
for us. I told him that we could say with one of old, we 
are not forsaken, and our seed does not beg bread, and we 
are abundantly satisfied — satisfied as things are, and satisfied 
to keep on. 

My friend and I separated, and after hovering a half 
hour over that silver star in the floor of the Washington de- 
pot that marks the spot where a great, good man felt the 
sting of a coward's bullet, and was carried away to change 
worlds because of the wound, I got on my train and was soon 
whizzing away through the darkness to my next appointment. 

15° 



Worn out with months of steady work from Montreal to 
Vicksburg, I could not sleep, and raising the curtains of the 
window in my compartment in the Pullman sleeper, 1 lay 
looking up at the star-jeweled floor of God's home. And as 
I lay there a thought of the little father who lay down for a 
long sleep five years ago came to me, and I remembered how 
a neighbor had come to me, just a few weeks before father 
had gone to know perfectly what he could but dimly under- 
stand here, and said to me: 

"Lou, what a funny little man your father is. This 
morning he was standing in the sun by his door, and looking 
for all the world like a corpse who had forgotten he was dead, 
and rose to attend to something he had just remembered 
needed attention. I said to him: 

" ' Doctor, how do you feel ? ' 

" 'All right, George, all right. Why I feel twenty years 
younger.' 

" 'Twenty years younger!' I cried in astonishment, 
thinking how soon he would commence counting time by ages 
and not by years. 'Why, Doctor, what makes you look so 
cheerful, and feel so much younger?' 

" ' Ah, George,' was his reply, ' Lou is sticking so bravely 
to his pledge and is doing so grandly, winning others to stop 
drinking.'" 

And I lay there thinking of those words of father so close 
to the day when his kindly eyes were closed on earth forever, 
and thinking of the seven years during which my drunken- 
ness had wrung his great heart, filled his eyes with bitter, 
burning tears. And then to think that God spared him until 
I had for five years been sober and true, and given me power 
to win many others to such a condition, and to bring the 
dying man to feel so much younger because of my newer, 
better life, that with great hot tears on my cheeks I said, as 
though my Washington friend was yet beside me: "Yes, it 
does pay; it pays as nothing else under the heavens pays." 

151 



And the next day I reached Washington, Washington 
County, Pa., and at the home of John A. Best and his good 
wife I found a royal welcome coming from hearts so full of 
Christian love that they are never so happy as when making 
some of their brothers and sisters under the universal Father- 
hood happy. And my mail was waiting for me; and after 
opening first the ones in the well-known hand of " the little 
woman," and finding that she and "the little man" were 
well, I opened the others. 

And one was from the city editor of a great daily news- 
paper in a great Western city, and the writer told me that he 
was to be managing editor in a few weeks, with a great salary, 
and spoke of the sunny home where the woman he loved and 
himself would always have a welcome and a room for me; 
and it closed thus : 

" You will never know, old fellow, how much I owe of 
my little success in life to your lectures, your example, and 
your book, together with the earnest words of advice you 
gave me when you found me seven years ago in Newark, 
Ohio, afraid to tackle the world and find a place in it. I 
was pretty far down, and, worst loss of all, had lost hope; 
but you and your noble little wife showed me such love and 
care that I began to take heart of grace, and listening to your 
words on the platform, I determined to 'try, try again'; 
and I have won a place in the world, and with it peace and 
happiness and plenty. God bless you, old friend ! My heart 
is full. Some time in tangible form I hope to prove my 
gratitude to you for all you have done for me." 

And I said —and really I fancied my worldly-minded 
friend from Pennsylvania avenue was by my side — "Yes, it 
does pay, an hundred and a thousand fold." 

I was looking through my valise a day or so later, and 
there fell out of a long book in which I keep papers and scraps 
a little package, and opening it, I found a silver quarter. I 
have carried it a long time, and hope to carry it till my hair 

r 5 2 



has snowy lines telling of age and weariness. I remember, 
as though it were but yesterday, where and when I got it. 
A great strong man carrying a six-year-old girl in his arms, 
came up to me in a Kentucky town as I was standing on the 
platform after a grand meeting; and the little girl said, hand- 
ing me a package : 

" Mister Bocamp, I want you to keep this for my sake. 
I wish it was enough to make you rich, rich, rich, but it's all 
I've dot. I love you so much." 

A silver quarter ! And some friends who had seen and 
heard told me how her father, learned and loving, had gone 
down to real want through drink, and God had given me 
words that had brought him back to sobriety, and family, 
and honor, and the church ; and the little girl, old through 
sorrow and want, had determined to show her affection for 
the instrument God had been using for the father's reforma- 
tion, and she had brought me her savings of many weeks. 

And a tear fell on the coin, and I put it back in its 
wrapper. And I said softly to myself, "Yes, my friend, it 
pays; I know no work that pays so well." 

A letter came a day or two ago from Owensboro, Ky., 
written in a magnificent hand — the hand of a scholar, and in 
it I read : 

"My wife and boy send their love to you, and you 
know I join in. My life now is not as it was last April, when 
you first began to speak here. Let me hear from you often. 
God bless you. Ed. " 

And I said again, "It pays, my old friend, it pays." 

And to-night, or morning rather, (for sleep, that twin 
brother of death, has been refusing me his help to "knit the 
ravelled sleeve of care " for some nights now, and so I sit and 
read till the cocks begin to crow, and the sun-god mounts his 
chariot for a ride about his kingdom), I am thinking of the 
mothers and wives who say to me, " In our prayers we shall 
remember you for the help you have been to our loved ones " 

i53 



— and I thank God he deems me worthy of being an instru- 
ment in his hands to tell of the dangers of drink, and the 
blessings of sobriety, and the glorious rest to be found at the 
foot of the Cross, and as each happy face of mother and of 
wife comes to me, and face of boy and man with that light 
"like none that ever was on land or sea" upon it, shines be- 
fore me, I wish that my friend would come just now, that I 
might say to him, "It pays — pays better than I ever dreamed 
it would when I began to make those imperfect, halting 
speeches in Butler County, Ohio, twenty years ago." 

And I go back a dozen years, and see " Beauchamp, 
the drunken editor," raving with delirium ; I see him stagger- 
ing blood-covered between two policemen ; I see him sneering 
and laughing at the church-going folk on a Sabbath day; I see 
him, pistol in hand, and feel again the hot kiss of the bullet 
I sent toward my heart in a feverish desire to free myself 
from my chains of appetite. I see and live over again those 
days of hovering between the seen and the unseen ; and now 
comes to me a remembrance of the gentle, tender touch of a 
woman's hand. I hear her pleading voice : "Brother, Christ 
died for you — live for Him; I will guide you to the light." 

And step by step I see myself walking by her side, and 
the clouds are breaking away ; through a rift in the sky I see 
the olden golden glory of the promises, and begin to under- 
stand that they are for me — for me; and still "the gentle 
soul" is leading me; and by and by the full truth breaks up- 
on me, and I sing "the new song" — she cannot sing with 
me for her tears; and the new battle commences, " the little 
woman " mine to help me with her courage and her faith 
when we come to the rough places in the road. I look up, 
and God seems just overhead, and " victory" is my cry. 

And so we have come hand in hand down the aisles of 
these twenty years, and I lay down my pen to thank God and 
the woman I love for happiness, content, friends, plenty, sun- 
shine, and power to work that others may find what I have 

i54 



bad all this time ; and if others would seek this work let me 
but add: " It pays — blessed be God ! it pays as nothing else 
I have ever tried pays, and the wages are regular and sure 
and abundant, and we wouldn't strike if we could, and we 
couldn't strike if we would. The labor is too easy, the pay 
is too great, the Master is too kindly in His dealings with us, 
and, brother, He wants more hands. Come and work with 
us. It pays. 



(Sari's Ljgbtliauses. 



Oh sailor, far out on the sea, 

Where the winds beat thy bark to and fro, 
Dost thou fear in the dark some dread rock 

May send thee and thine down below ? 
Have faith, over yon stands the tower, 

And the keeper toils up the dark way, 
And at last he has lit the great lamp 

And thy vessel steeis safe in the bay. 

O, soul, far adrift on life's sea, 

Are the waves of thy guilt mounting high ? 
Does the darkness of sin strike a chill to thy heart 

And no light come to thee from the sky ? 
Have faith, though the thunders roll loud 

From the storm-king's dread faraway camp : 
Over yon stands the lighthouse of God, 

And He knows when to light up the lamp. 

A storm but makes sweeter the air, 

And a dark night precedes the bright day. 
For every high wave of our guilt 

There is calm in God's Penitent Bay; 
And all along sin's darkened shore, 

E'en where gather death's heaviest damps, 
Stand the stately lighthouses of God, 

And He knows when to light up the lamps. 



155 



& ^Disit in u Ti'apptst HUrmasterg. 



Gethsemane, Kentucky, is the seat of the Trappist 
Monastery of Our Lady of Lourdes, a place where all the 
traditions of that weird monastic order founded by LaTrappe 
in Catholic France, in 1140, are sacredly lived up to. 

Without the walls Nature has on her royal autumn robes, 
and a smiling sun adds brighter gold to the foliage covering 
hills and valleys; inside all is dark and dead, grave spades 
are playthings, and skulls and crossbones are pillow com- 
panions. 

When the Benedictine order of early ages began to 
depart from the faith of its founders, and the friars and 
monks commenced filling their bellies with good things and 
their hours with cheer of monkish tales and worldly jokes, a 
handful of the faithful, bemoaning in sackcloth and ashes so 
terrible a descent from high aim, betook themselves, with 
cowl, and robe, and death's head, and crucifix and crucified 
stomach afar, and, favored by the gift of a Count LaTrappe, 
builded the first Trappist monastery, and since that year of 
1 140 there has been no departure from the faith. 

Over a half century ago these grim brothers sent a por- 
tion of their number to America, to prove the advantage of 
their mode of life to faithful Catholics " across seas.'' At 
Dubuque, Iowa, and Gethsemane, Ky., they builded their 
monasteries, the latter being the larger, and the more interest- 
ing because of its secluded and lonely situation, "far from 
the maddening crowd." The order has never flourished in this 
country. Converts have been rare, and of the one hundred 
and fifty priests and lay brothers who once inhabited this 

156 



monastery, but thirty-five remain, and those are mostly aged 
and weik, very close to the day of their deliverance and 
reward. The rest, uncoffined, wrapped only in the white or 
brown habit they wore in life, rest in the shallow graves that 
lie all too thick and close in the little "God's Acre" back of 
their beautiful church. 

Armed with a letter of introduction from a prominent 
Catholic citizen of Lebanon, we reached the monastery one 
recent morning. It is situated in a hollow, and completely 
hidden thus from the surrounding country. You come upon 
it all unawares, and were it not for the few neighboring farm 
houses and negro cabins, which are unmistakably American, 
one could easily imagine himself in France, the monastery 
buildings being all of distinctive foreign style. They are 
approached by an avenue of giant trees planted with mathe- 
matical precision, which for half a century have waved their 
arms in benison to the peaceful dwellers over the walls. 

At the end of the avenue stands a low, one-story brick 
building, containing several narrow rooms, the wall of the 
monastery grounds serving as a back wall of the building. 
The rooms against the outer wall are evidently not on con- 
secrated ground, as women are welcome here, and permitted 
to hold converse with the trading priest or those having 
charge of the school near by. Presenting our letter of intro- 
duction to a " brother in brown," he bade us be seated, and 
leaving us soon returned with a " brother in white " —a priest, 
Father Edward, a sweet-faced, low-voiced man of perhaps 
sixty years of age, who gave us cordial greeting, and placed 
himself entirely at our service.- 

With no preliminary words of explanation he bade us 
follow him, which we did, through the long outer building, 
and out and across a bit of ground into a small circular 
chapel, into which we were all permitted to enter. It would 
seat perhaps one hundred worshipers, and contained the 
crucifix, altar, candles and other usual articles of Catholic 

157 




1 5 8 



worship. In a room off from the chapel was a representation 
of the Grotto of Lourdes. The entire piece is about six feet 
high and eight feet wide. It is used as a special altar before 
which the faithful bow in adoration and ask for such relief as 
they need. 

The ladies of our party were taken by the Father to the 
gallery, where a view was obtained of the larger church, 
known as the community chapel, and in which the monks 
only worship, the smaller chapel being for the country people 
of the faith. Returning to the chapel door the monk notified 
us that the ladies must return to the office, having been per- 
mitted to see all that was allowed to womankind, the offices 
and the secular chapel without the walls, for inside the walls 
of a Trappist monastery no woman has yet set foot. 

The monastery is erected in the shape of a hollow 
square, four stories high, plain and strong, one side having 
in its centre the great church, against the outer wall of which 
the secular chapel before mentioned is built. The square 
within is beautifully laid out with beds of flowers and shrubs, 
a summer house in the centre, and a large pump which forces 
water to every floor of the building. The building contains 
workshops, where various kinds of manual labor are per- 
formed ; a guest department, where Catholics who desire to 
retire from the world for a time are cared for, and where 
priests who have been deposed from their pulpits for some 
ecclesiastical fault are permitted to do penance, without tak- 
ing upon themselves the austere life of the monks ; a printing 
office, evidently long unused; a dormitory, kitchen, refectory, 
a community or reading room, store rooms, library, etc. 
The building is admirably arranged for a college, and could 
easily accomodate five hundred scholars, in addition to the 
thirty-five ghostly fathers who dwell there now. 

The library contains several thousand volumes of theo- 
logical lore in Latin, French, German, Greek and English, 
and some of those are very rare and curious. One volume 

i 5 9 




i6o 



the priest showed us was a Bible of 1537, weighing perhaps 
forty pounds, with the print as perfect and the paper as sound 
as though the volume had come from the press but yesterday. 
A treasure of the monastery is a Bible written by the monks 
over a thousand years ago. The letters would shame the 
average teacher of penmanship of to-day, while never a nine- 
teenth century Arnold makes an ink that will carry its prim- 
itive hue through centuries as have the inks made and 
used by these priests of the dark ages. The initial letters are 
veritable works of art in several colors, red predominating. 
There were also volumes of chants, five feet tall, bound in 
leather nearly an inch thick, and the backs and edges bound 
with heavy brass, hand wrought, and great projecting knobs 
of brass two inches high all over the sides. These in olden 
days were set up in the centre of the church and the letters 
and notes being an inch in height were readily seen and sung 
by the worshipers. These are the same chants, without 
change of word or note, that the church has sung from its 
earliest history. 

The monastery rooms are bare of ornament, save cruci- 
fixes and religious pictures, some of the latter modern, but 
many others centuries old. 

From the library we visited the kitchen. It brought up 
Scott's tales, and early English history. A dark high raf- 
tered room, with brick floor and brick ovens, into which are 
sunk four immense iron pots, only one of the latter being 
now in use, though all were needed in the palmier days of the 
monastery. Round the room shuffles an old brother in brown, 
the cook, a veritable picture out of the Middle Ages. 

The smiling Father lifted the cover from the great iron 
pot, and the monks' dinner was exposed. Soup, thick, 
yellow vegetable soup — soup made " from an original recipe," 
handed down from abbot to monk, and from monk to friar, 
and from friar to brother in brown for over seven centuries. 
The flavor of today's soup, the flavor of the soup set before 

161 




l62 



the first lot of Trappist monks who ever sat at table. No 
meat in it ? Certainly not. No Trappist monk has tasted 
meat since 1140. Only water and turnips and potatoes and 
cabbage and vegetables that came in with creation. No 
pepper, no salt. Seasoning and spice and sauce for the 
stomach are as much forbidden to those faithful recluses as is 
the seasoning and spice and sauce of life's pleasures forbidden 
for the mind. 

"And is this all your dinner?" we asked the priest. 

"Oh! no; we have another dish," he replied, and led 
the way into the refectory. 

One yellow bowl was covered with a napkin, and this 
contained " the other dish." The good priest, seemingly 
with an air of curiosity, lifted the napkin, and we beheld a 
piece of cheese, weighing perhaps two ounces. The day 
must have been a feast day, for, in addition to soup, bread 
and cheese, each place was garnished with a couple of apples. 
The curiosity of the monk regarding "the other dish" was 
afterward explained to us in the fact that it is decided by the 
cook, according to his own whim, and may be cheese, a bit 
of mush, a piece of corn bread, or some other equally inno- 
cent and safe food. The soup, however, is the main dish, 
and a Trappist monk is sentenced to it for life. To top off 
his dinner he has each day a mug of cider. From this bill 
of fare there is never a change, though kingdoms rise and 
fall, and ages wax hoary and give way to newer births of time. 

What do they have for supper, you ask ? Nothing, and 
like the dinner bill of fare, the supper bill has never been 
changed since the first monk of the order took the vows. 

What is their breakfast ? The same as supper. The 
Trappist monk eats but one meal a day, at half past two in 
the afternoon. "And" said the priest, with a twinkle of his 
bright eyes, " we always have a good appetite." 

In the dining room no word is ever uttered. As we 
entered it the Father put his finger to his lips, and waited till 

163 







164 



we had passed out to answer our questions and tell us of the 
changeless bill of fare. A like rule of silence is observed in 
the community church, and the sleeping apartment, and in 
all these years in these rooms no priest or lay brother has 
uttered a word. Moreover the Trappist monk really takes a 
vow of silence on entering the order, being permitted to 
speak only on matters of absolute business to his superior, 
the Abbot, while the brother in brown may speak on business 
to the priest. 

From the dining room we visited the church, a vast, 
long, high cathedral, with fluted columns and echoing vaults. 
The great altar was plainly but richly ornamented with statues 
of saints, and a marvelously beautiful crucifixion, the figure 
of the Saviour being carved in wood, the lifetime work of one 
of the monks. The priests are justly proud of this piece of 
work, as also of a crozier, also a monk's handiwork, who 
gave his life to the task of making it. It is eight feet high, 
and consists of thousands of bits of various colored woods 
set in the staff and crook, after the fashion of mosaic work, 
and representing crosses, flowers, altars and geometrical 
figures, as well as scenes from Bible story. 

Across the walk from the grotto lie all the dead of the 
monastery. 

One grave contains the dust of a brave soldier of the 
First Empire. Napoleon was his friend as well as his general, 
and when the great commander was sent to St. Helena the 
medaled hero's heart was broken. He retired to the abbey 
of La Trappe, in France, and took the vow of silence. He 
was one of those sent to America to found the order here, 
and bravely did he live up to his faith. But Age found him 
within the grim walls, and brought Death to force the soldier 
to his last battle. Death won, and just before the soldier- 
monk struck his colors and capitulated the Abbot bent over 
him and said : 

" If you have anything on your mind and wish to speak, 
you may do so. " 

165 




i66 



The dying monk opened his glazing eyes — there was a 
gleam of the old battle spirit in them. A smile came over 
his wan face, and the silence of long years was broken : 

' ' The Emperor — what became of him ? " And the next 
moment the question was answered by the Angel of Record. 

The burial service of the monks is very beautiful and 
touching. After the day of exposure in the church, during 
which time the services for the dead are continuously per- 
formed, the monks lift their dead comrade and carry him in 
their hands to the grave, which may have been ready for 
years, and lay the body, uncoffined, in its embrace, covering 
it with earth, the while prayers are offered and chants intoned. 
Each day the monks go to their Silent City and with their 
hands dig up a little earth from the place next the last-made 
grave. Thus day by day the grave for the next one who may 
need it is made ready, and their motto of " Memento mori" 
is kept fresh in their minds. 

From here we visited the sleeping apartments of the 
monks. It is a long, wide room, with windows on either 
side, carpetless and pictureless. In the centre is built a series 
of wooden cells, about four feet wide and seven feet long, 
open at the top. Along one side of each cell two wide boards 
form a bunk, and this is their bed. They are permitted to 
have a small straw pallet, but few use it, preferring rather to 
crucify the body in sleep by using the bare boards. Sleeping 
in their heavy woolen gowns, they need no covering, though 
it may be used in cold weather if desired, there being no fire 
allowed. Once each week, on entering his cell, each monk 
disrobes and proceeds to scourge himself with a heavily 
knotted cat-o'-nine-tails. 

And now to explain the good appetite of the monks, 
satisfied with a bowl of soup, a handful of bread and a lump 
of cheese. They go to bed at seven o'clock p. m., and rise 
at two a. M., having three minutes in which to go from the 
dormitory to the chapel. Here they worship, each to himself, 

167 



till daylight, when they go to work on the farm, in the grist- 
mill, saw-mill, or cheese factory, all of which are owned by 
the monastery, all the labor being performed by the monks, 
who obey the rule of silence at work as at all other times. 
They work until half after two in the afternoon, and then go 
to their only meal. Of late years there is not much work to 
do, save in the spring and at harvest time, and the hours not 
occupied by labor are given to worship and reading till seven 
o'clock strikes on the clock in the church tower, and the cells 
and the board beds are sought. 

Of the outer world the monks know nothing. "You 
may write anything you please concerning us, " said Father 
Edward, "and you will not hurt our feelings, for we can 
never hear of it. We read no papers, and know nothing that 
has happened in the world since we came here." 

Letters frequently pass out of and into the Abbey, prin- 
cipally to and from the monasteries of Europe, and the higher 
church dignitaries at Rome. 

According to our guide the monks are all healthy and 
happy. Their diet certainly produces no dyspepsia or gout, 
and hunger gives them most excellent sauce, and while the 
gloom and silence, and long hours of work and worship, and 
board beds, and scourge are certainly not in themselves con- 
ducive to happiness here, they assure the monks of heaven, 
"and for this we gladly suffer here," said the priest. 

Here were to be learned lessons in faith — faith that rose 
to the heights of absolute sublimity ; faith that prompted long 
lives of bodily suffering and pain in the belief that God ap- 
proved, and the Angel of Entrance would be ready to swing 
wide the gate. 

It may not be the real religion; that we shall find out 
beyond the stars; but such lives show forth the real spirit of 
worship, and these lowly monks whose vows are of poverty 
and privation and bodily suffering, are nobler in their abase- 
ment than the world's mightiest in their pride. 

1 68 



In this belief the writer has lived. In this belief he 
hopes to die, knowing that "over yonder," where creeds, 
dogmas, and articles of faith have never been recorded, and 
where only faith, and courage, and duty, and trust, and prayer, 
and deeds of kindness are weighed and measured and written 
down, he shall find by the side of mightiest ministers of his 
own religion, ministers of all others as well, and Jew and 
Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, black and white, and yellow 
and brown, all tinged with Heaven's gold, singing the one 
song " to the Lamb that was slain, " and close to the throne 
he shall see the poor monks of La Trappe, admitted, not for 
their beliefs, but for their faith and suffering and sacrifice. 



The engravings illustrating this article are used by courtesy of the 
publishers of " The A r ew Bohemian" % I.oo per year, Pike's Opera House 
Building, Cincinnati. This magazine, thoroughly up-to-date, can be 
consistently recommended to my readers who are seeking the best in 
modern literature. It is independent, fearless and bright, and con- 
clusively proves that the East does not hold the patent on the art of 
modern magazine making. 



^rcstncrc Ftrirm TOnrtt. 



The Queen lay dead in the hall of state, 

With only her page on guard, 
While afar in the forest beyond the gates, 

The King and his suite rode hard. 
Rode hard and rode fast, for the hunter's horn, 

Had told how the fox would head, 
And the King and his suite cared more for the brush, 

Than for her who now lay dead. 
He married for power, she married for love, 

And only the King had won ; 
The woman's heart was empty and bare, 

Long years ere her breath was gone. 
But her page, who was young and fair to see, 

Had worshiped her day by day ; 
To him she was dearer by far than life, 

And together they wasted away. 

169 



For the Queen had been true to her cruel lord — 

Had been true to the name she bore — 
Though she saw the love that her fair page felt, 

When his brown eyes would brim o'er. 
So day by day they lingered on, 

And the Queen was the first to sleep, 
But the King rode off at the flush of morn, 

And left the page to weep. 
He fell across her cold, white form, 

"Oh, Queen ! " he cried, " do you know 
I have loved you all these weary years, 

But I dared not tell you so? 
" But now you have lain your gold crown off, 

I may tell what I tried to hide, 
That for you I was ready to face the world, 

For you, what joy to have died. 
" Your lord was cold, and your lord was cruel, 

And your heart was empty and sore, 
You knew that my heart and my life were yours, 

You were learned in true love's lore ; 
" But you were as true as the stars of God, 

So we suffered day by day ; 
But now, bless God, we are one at last, 

And none dare say us nay." 
" What words are these, thou mumbling fool?" 

Cried the King as he strode to the bier ; 
" Sure, never before, such talk as this 

" Hath fallen on kingly ear ! " 

" And never, my Lord," said the weeping page, 

" Shalt thou hear such words again ; 
Thou hast broken the heart of thy loyal Queen 

And mine own has snapped in twain. 
" On earth we could only be Queen and page, 

No matter how cruel wert thou, 
In heaven above we shall equals be, 

And I go to join her now." 
The King raised his hand to strike him down 

Who had dared to be so true, 
But the hand of God touched the brave soul first, 

And the dead in the room were two. 

170 



TOo matt Suffrage. 



A Sabbath-school teacher asked her class at what age 
should children give their hearts to God. The little ones 
gave various ages in reply, running from six to twelve years. 
But the youngest child in the class, a little tot of less than six 
summers, replied: " Just as soon as we know who God is." 

At what time should we give our every energy to the 
right? As soon as the right becomes expedient? As soon 
as we can win ? As soon as we have something else off our 
mind? In the next campaign? No! Just as soon as we 
know what the right is. 

The above is respectfully referred to our friends who 
seem to be opposed to woman suffrage. 

We have been fighting the old parties for years on the 
ground that they are parties of expediency and policy, not 
right and principle, and now comes some of our wisest and 
most trusted men endorsing expedient and politic moves for 
"the party of the new crusade," lest we should lose some 
votes in the coming campaign. Consistency is as much of a 
jewel in the Prohibition party as it is anywhere else. 

Our recent declarations on woman suffrage, however, 
do not settle the question. Two-thirds of the States have got 
to carry the question at the ballot-box before the National 
Constitution can be changed to admit of said suffrage. The 
men who cannot swallow the dose will have their chance to 
vote against it at the ballot-box when it comes up for settle- 
ment. The Prohibition platform did not settle it, more's 
the pity. 

I would like to know what the anti-suffragists have 
against their mothers and wives anyhow ? I've got nothing 

171 



against mine. Parties of expediency, to catch votes, sold the 
saloon-keeper the right to make me a drunkard. A woman's 
love made me a sober man. My future and my boy's future 
are safer in her hands than in the hands of the saloon-keepers 
and politicians who came so near ruining me for time and 
eternity. 

I want " the little man " I love to be spared the exper- 
iences of his father in the dark days, and I would sooner 
trust him to the political mercies of " the little woman," and 
Frances Willard, Mother Stewart, and Susan B. Anthony, 
than to John L. Sullivan, bruiser, bummer and wife-beater; 
Richard K. Fox, of the Police Gazette, and Patsy Bolivar, 
and Herr Most. You couldn't get those women to " run 
wid de machine," or to hold a caucus or a nominating con- 
vention in a saloon, and nominate the saloon-keeper as a 
matter of policy. 

The male idea of suffrage has descended to us from the 
man who lived in a cave, and traveled in a dug-out and 
acquired territory and slaves by his strong arm and his war 
club. When all power went to the man of muscle, and 
brains had not begun to develop, back in the time of the dark 
ages, women necessarily remained in the background. Her 
muscles were too tender and her skull too soft. But even 
then her heart and her soul were all right. 

To-day the man of muscle is confined to the* interior of 
Africa and some parts of Boston, and brains, not biceps, rule 
the country and the world. Hence with government and 
law, matters of thought and politics, merely the mechanism 
of morals, any vessel holding brains is worthy of being called 
into service. Take Frances Willard's clear brain out of the 
prohibitory agitation of the past years, and the last Prohibi- 
tion convention could have met in a good-sized dry goods 
box. The W. C. T. U. has been firing brains and heart at 
the liquor curse all these years, and " we're gitting a big boy 
now." Nothing like woman's care to bring boys up to 
manhood. 

172 



What are the objections to woman suffrage ? 

Two classes of men say they "don't know enough to 
vote." One class is represented by our foreign ward, who 
lands at Castle Garden on Monday, and wants to vote on 
" Chuesday." Asked what ticket he wants to vote, he re- 
plies: " Divil a bit do I care. I'm against the government 
anyhow" ; and he can neither read nor write. 

The other class is represented by the political dema- 
gogue and demijohn, who knows that the white-souled women 
of this country know enough not to vote for such scamps as 
himself, and that accounts for the milk in his particular 
cocoanut. 

"But if a women can vote, she'll have to do all a man 
has to do." No she won't. She won't have to spend $50 
" setting 'em up" for the " boys," before election, and then 
refuse the children ten cents to buy candy with, because times 
are so deucedly hard, "dontcherknow." 

She won't have to march half the night in an oilcloth 
uniform, carrying a greasy torchlight all over town, yelling 
at every second step like a crazy Comanche, and come home 
at three in the morning with a head so big she has to get 
through the door sideways. 

She won't have to neglect her business three months in 
every year to "save the country" in the back room of 
Maginnis' saloon, with the Constitution of the United States 
on the table, the platform of the opposition party in one 
hand, and a glass of forty-rod bourbon in the other. 

" Well, if she votes, she'll have to fight." No she won't. 
This country has seen its last war, thank God. Brains, not 
biceps, will settle all vexed questions. We are farther away 
from the war club than ever. Read our platform again. 
When women vote it will be with our party, and our party 
has declared for arbitration — brains, not bullets. 

"Well, she'll have to sit on juries; and think of the 
vile, scandalous cases that are being tried every day." Well, 

i73 



think of them if you want to; and remember, as you think Of 
them, that whenever a vile case comes into court, and a 
woman's honor has been taken from her, and in heart-break 
she is compelled to ask through the law for the support of 
the innocent soul at her breast, you will find that it was a 
dirty-souled man who committed the crime, moved by passion, 
while the poor girl was blinded by love ; and if a jury of 
white-souled women get to sit on such a case, they would 
make it so hot for such vile men by their verdict that such 
cases will never come up again, and the girlhood of the 
nation will ever after be safe from the seducer and libertine, 
because the seducer and libertine will be sent where they 
belong — the penitentiary. 

"But women can't understand politics." Of course 
they can't; the kind of politics you have been dishing up for 
them. Nine-tenths of the men can't understand the present 
political methods of the old parties. Let women's clean 
instincts get hold of this matter once, and politics will have 
a new meaning as well as a new force. 

The man who is afraid to let his wife and mother go to 
the ballot-box can only be afraid of their overthrowing some 
of the foul plans that he has hitched his political soul to, and 
the sooner these plans are overthrown the better it will be 
for the nation. 

A good woman can never be quite so good as when she 
is helping to make good laws for the good of the whole people. 
When all the men of the country are running mad over pig 
iron and wool, it is high time to get an element into our- 
political forces that will try and do something for women and 
children and growing boys. The whole political forces of 
the nation seem to be slobbering over inert pig-iron and 
sheep's wool. Let us have a few speeches, and tears, and a 
million votes for cradles and babies, and boys and school- 
houses, and men, women, homes and churches. 

I thank God that the marching army of the new crusade 
has not been afraid to do right, and has reached out its arms 
to the women of the country. God bless them all ! Sister, 
here's my hand, and my ballot for you and yours is in it. 

i74 



TOhat Eibp Left. 



A little shoe and a lock of hair, 

The latter as bright as the sun ; 
A glove so small, sure fairy ne'er 

Wore such a tiny one ; 
A rubber rattle, and, last of all, 

A frock as white as the snow, 
Are lying together, all in a heap, 

Under the lamp-light's glow. 

They were found just now in the bottom drawer 

Of a bureau old and worn, 
And they brought the blood in a surging stream 

To the brain of a mother forlorn ; 
For never again shall a tiny hand 

Be warmed by this tiny glove, 
And never again shall the baby's kiss 

Make stronger a mother's love. 
The little white frock shall be worn no more, 

For the fashion has changed of late, 
She wears the garment washed in blood 

That is worn in the angel state. 
And the little shoe, all worn and frayed, 

Whose patter was music sweet 
To the mother ear, no more shall sound 

To the step of the baby's feet. 
For under a mound all covered with bloom, 

A mound so narrow and short, 
Is the body of one who was all too fair 

For aught save the heavenly court ; 
And there my baby is resting sweet, 

While I sit idly here, 
With only a frock, a rattle and shoe, 

And a mother's blinding tear. 

But by and by, when I, too, rest 

In the church-yard lone and drear, 
My spirit will climb to the glittering stars, 

Afar from the ache and tear ; 
And there in the golden, gracious light 

Of eternity's breaking day, 
I will clasp my babe to the mother breast 

Forever and for aye : 

175 



Tire (Eirnxs — & Hllzmarg. 

It has been more than a score of years since I first heard 
the merry ' ' Hoop la ! here we are again ! " of the be-spangled 
clown, as he entered the "saw-dust circle" with his face 
covered with a good half of all the colors in the rainbow. 
Time and I have been toiling up the heights since then, leaving 
boyhood, youth and early manhood far in the rear. When I 
entered the tent of the traveling circus the other night, a tent 
nearly as large as the name of the concern itself, with all its 
mastodonic, megotherium constellations af quincuplexal mon- 
strosities, as the show-bills asserted in a philologic exhibition 
that would have thrown Richard Grant White into convul- 
sions, I held by the hand one or more representatives of mine 
own loins who were to take their initiatory stroll among the 
zoological contributions of the four quarters of the earth, and 
I swear it on my hopes of future smiles as sweet as the first 
have been, from the quiet-faced little woman who kept at 
least one eye and a half on the child or children aforesaid, 
and not more than the other half on the animals, that as I 
gave up our joint pasteboard passes to the door keeper, and 
stepped within the canvassed enclosure, I felt blown to me 
from the long-unseen hills of childhood a current of air such 
as childhood only feels. The atmosphere of the tent was by 
no means of the purest, if the tip-tilted nostrils of the many 
scenters thereof were a criterion, but I scented nothing foul. 
I was afar back where Time first found me and the air had 
a song on its bosom that spoke to me of childhood's joys and 
memories I had thought dead and forgotten. I am ready to 
swear the same most pleasant oath once more that the first 

176 



moments under the swaying canvass made my own heart as 
light and happy as. the heart or hearts of the small one or 
ones aforesaid, who had eyes for nothing but the monkeys 
and the Simian ancestors of future scientists who hugged 
certain uncleanly perches with their caudals and in this 
respect only seemed to differ from a portion of those who 
gazed on them. 

And is not this the very reason why the circus of to-day 
numbers among its diurnal audiences the whitened heads of 
age? Is it not that age goes to be rejuvenated, and for an 
hour carried back to boyhood's days and scenes ? I saw at 
the circus aforesaid the other night heads that had been 
ruthlessly mowed by the lawn-mower of Time ; heads which 
shone only brighter than the good deeds of the owners 
thereof; heads that bend and bob and finally sink to rest 
Sabbath after Sabbath in the meeting house pews, notwith- 
standing the fact that the good minister in stentorian tones 
speaks of the wrath to come. These good old souls sleep on 
as if the "wrath to come" was only for foreigners, and I 
feel as I see them nodding away that salvation is theirs. A 
man who can sleep in church, of all places else, must be sure 
of the beyond, and have besides a good conscience a super- 
latively good digestion. I say that I saw these fathers-in- 
Israel at the exhibition of the Grand Consolidated Hypothet- 
ical Conglomeration of Arenic Stellar Attractions and Quad- 
rupedic Contributions of the Differentiated Zones (or thar' 
abouts) the other nights, and I loved them for going. I was 
glad to see them there knowing that they had braved the 
good pastor who, in his sermons previous to the coming of 
all circuses, avers that Satan comes also and can be found 
hoof, hides and all with each tent show that travels. If the 
proprietors could only get hold of the " auld Nick" what an 
attraction he would be on the bills ! But these old fellows 
were not at the circus for an evil purpose. All hell might 
have been under the tent and these good fathers would have 

177 



walked by unmoved and been the self-same sacrificing, 
kindly, compassionate Christians the next day. Bless their 
dear old souls, it was that strange, sweet atmosphere of the 
long ago they were after ; the old thrill of years agone they 
wanted to experience once more ere death claimed them and 
finally taught them to ride round the circle of time on the 
Pale Horse. I have experienced the momentary exhilaration 
of youth, the forgetfulness of debts and insurance agents, and 
the memories of the past myself under the canvas of the 
traveling circus, and I don't wonder any longer why the old 
men go and wear on their faces that look of content that will 
wear off as soon as they come back out of that dream of the 
past into the drudging present. 

Each step intensified the memories of youth. I saw 
what seemed to be the very same restless, shaggy, cinnamon 
bear that frightened me, so long ago it makes my teeth ache 
to think of it; and as sure as you live and pay your just dues 
one of the monkeys winked at me exactly as he did when I 
wore knee-breeches and saw him in another State, in a canvas 
not a quarter so large as the one he was then under. It was 
the same monkey, I'll swear it on my hopes of getting paid 
for this article. And if that great, uncouth Tartary yak that 
looked as if the Lord made him in a hurry and put his belly 
where his shoulders should have been, was not the one who 
stared at a little boy with very large eyes twenty years ago 
I'll refuse the first nomination tendered me by the cultured 
and most worthy voters of my district. And the elephants, 
camels, lions, tiger-cats, zebras, elands, gnus, etc., may have 
been recent importations ; they may not have been old 
acquaintanceships of several decades dead and gone, but I 
want custom-house receipts to convince me of my error. 

When our inspection of the animals was over we of 
course "went beyond" into the tent sacred to the arenic 
sports, and sat down upon benches as hard as a book agent's 
cheek, and saw the same band, tune up and proceed to de- 

178 



molish quavers and semi-quavers, whole notes and half notes 
as if the soul of music lay in the force of one's blows or the 
strength of one's wind. And then the curtains were parted 
for the "grand entree" of two women with very red faces 
and long dresses and some eight men with very ditto faces 
and costumes of the age Noachian as far as any established 
rules could be observed in either the cutting, or the combina- 
tions of colors. The entree ended and then Monsieur Alonzo 
De Codona, a native of Cork who let his name fall overboard 
from the steamer and bounced the first one he found lying 
loose in Castle Garden, came out to do his celebrated act of 
horsemanship, "the acme of physical daring." Perhaps it 
was; I thought so years and years ago, but (perhaps it was 
because I sat higher the other night,) as the horse's back was 
as broad as a variety show joke, and covered with a thing 
wondrously like Old Grimes' cellar door, on which I used 
to tear my trowser's and do damage to my grandame's temper 
in the " callow days," it seems to me now to have been a very 
easy thing for the Monsieur with the large name and large 
feet to have accomplished what he did. 

But I paid little attention to Codona. In the ring, there 
preceded him boyhood's deity — the old clown. Not a bit 
older was he than when he first sent the tears of joy down 
my cheeks; he had on the same suit and no — yes, actually 
gave out the same jokes about his girl, and his feats of jump- 
ing and his brother, and about him being smart enough to be 
a fool, etc., etcetera, quantum more than sufficet, but I laughed 
just as I had done "long back" — exactly as that child or 
those children of which I have spoken did as it or they sat 
beside me. The two (or more) laughs had exactly the same 
cadence, the same ebb and flow - it was not a group of parents 
and children laughing, — for the nonce all were children. It 
actually seemed to me I had pantalettes on, and " roaches'' 
in my hair. I don't suppose, really, that 1 did, but I felt like 
it, and the feeling was worth a fortune. I have wondered 

179 






for years why the old clown did not get off a new joke once 
in a while, but I wonder at it no longer. He would be de- 
throned if he did. The old paters and maters who heard him 
twenty, thirty, forty years ago, would not recognize him 
through a joke newer than the fifth of a century since, and 
that joyful feeling of an instantaneous journey back to the 
green hills and murmuring streams of childhood would never 
be taken again. Those old jokes are the enchanted carpet 
of which the Princess Scherzerade told the gouty King. You 
are seated, and presto, you are wherever you will to be, and 
who wouldn't go back to childhood for an hour? With the 
poet — 

" I'd rather laugh a fair haired boy, 
Than reign a grey-haired king." 

The other acts had the same old flavor, but I cared 
little for them. Whenever the clown came out, I laughed 
until the tears ran down my cheeks, and I guess I am laugh- 
ing yet. I shall get back to my dignified years in a day or 
two perhaps, but I am still inhaling the air of boyhood days. 

God bless- you, old clown ; I have come close to you 
more than once in these years ; I have learned the life that 
exists beneath the paint and the tinsel ; I have seen you con- 
vulse the spectators when a dying wife lay a thousand miles 
away, passing through the valley of the shadow ; I have heard 
your merry jibes when death was pulling at your heartstrings: 
I have seen you in your motley garb, with the eyes of thous- 
ands on you, and seen death take you for his own but an 
hour later. I love you old fellow ; you have a necrom- 
ancer's wand that turns old age to youth, Ponce de Leon 
would have followed you in your peregrinations, and have 
let the everglades of Florida alone, had he known of you in 
time. They say your jokes are old — nay, they do assert 
that Noah put Shem, Ham and Japhet to sleep with them, 
but it's little matter. They gave me back my childhood the 
other night, and I stand pledged to listen to them as they 

1 80 



grow older and older that I may enjoy for an hour each year 
the journey back over hard roads and swollen streams and 
through almost impregnable passes into the sunny fields of 
childhood, and when death does end your jokes for all time, 
I'll stand by your resting place and lay a sprig of holly there, 
and give you the wealthiest tribute love can give to death 
— a tear. 



& Ttruj fitt nf a Tittvm. 



A tiny bit of a fellow, 

But he filled the house with noise, 
Till I told him over and over again 

He was worst of all the boys. 

As I sat at my library table, 

Trying to write for bread, 
Time and again I gave it up 

For the noises overhead. 

And time and again I scolded him, 
And begged him to keep still, 

But he'd only say, between his sobs, 
"Bime-by, dear Pop, I will." 

And the "bime-by" is here now, 
When the little man keeps still ; 

And there's silence — silence everywhere- 
And a grave upon the hill. 

I wish the hours were full of noise, 
And the house a bedlam quite; 

But I've only this awful silence 
And that little grave to-night. 



TIatfarm gxjiBrmtrrs. 



When a boy of fifteen, I thought a lecturer necessarily 
greater than an actor, inasmuch as an actor only gave utter- 
ance to other men's ideas, whereas a lecturer held his 
audience by the originality and force of his own thoughts. 
Age and experience, however, have taught me that I was 
wrong in that belief. I have long since discovered that a 
lecturer may not only use the ideas of other men, but that, 
if he possesses magnetism or cheek, he can cut quite a respect- 
able figure upon the platform and use no ideas at all. 

• Of course, I have reference here to lecturers who have 
no higher aim than to entertain the people, and who pose as 
teachers along well-known lines on things not new. I do not 
refer to the Beechers, Cooks, Phillipses and Goughs of the 
platform, but to that vast body of lesser lights who talk on 
literary and humorous topics, on temperance, or other reforms. 
A Proctor or a Stanley who has discovered something new in 
the heavens or upon the earth, by investigation or travel, a 
Beecher or a Cook, who has found out something new in 
metaphysics, draws and holds his audiences, not by his man- 
ner of presenting his discoveries, but by the matter itself. 

But where the lecture platform has one such man as 
those mentioned, it has a hundred of lesser calibre, who, 
while claiming to be teachers, are not discoverers, and must 
consequently be judged as lecturers alone. It is this class 
which, if its representative possess but magnetism and a good 
advertising agent, can dispense "chestnuts" gathered from 
others' fields, or make up for the absence of even moldy ideas 
by a well-fitting dress suit, and a "stage presence" that carries 
■everything before it. 

182 



The American love of "lions" is responsible for a great 
number of men on the lecture platform of to day — men who 
could not draw a ten-dollar house save by the magic of their 
widely heralded peculiarities, or the title before their name. 
This class of men, knowing that their audiences come to see 
and not to hear, give themselves no trouble about their speeches 
nor the manner of making them. "Bunthorne" stormed the 
citadel of American judgment, and carried it, not by the 
force and originality of his ideas on art, which any American 
school girl could have equalled in a graduating essay; but 
by the fit of his knee breeches, the "gaucheries" of his man- 
ner, and his Absolomic hirsute adornment. When he got 
home he abandoned the small clothes, got his hair cut, and 
settled down to the enjoyment of his American golden fleece. 

Among the "small bore" above referred to I have stood 
for some years, and these years have brought me into ac- 
quaintance with audiences in all sections of this country, as 
well as in other countries, and also familiarized me with 
the peculiarities of that altogether useless but inevitable 
appendage to a popular lecture, the chairman. This latter 
personage in Canada is usually a Member of Parliament, but 
in case Parliament is in session, an ex-Member, or some 
other high official, is chosen. In the United States, as a 
general thing, no effort is made by the lecture committee to 
get a prominent man for the position, the only endeavor 
made being to get one who can look an audience in the face 
and say a dozen words without allowing his knees to knock 
together too perceptibly, and his voice to desert him through 
stage fright. I have even seen a church janitor called upon 
to act as chairman, the audience and lecturer kindly waiting 
a few moments to allow him to put on his coat, which he 
had removed while he "rang the second bell." His intro- 
duction of the speaker was certainly witty, if brevity is all 
that wit needs, for it was simply: "Women and men. I'll 
introduce to the crowd Mister Jones. He going to talk." 

183 



And he did talk, and talked well, of the gloriously beautiful 
Yosemite country; but while many of his descriptions of 
scenery were grand and eloquent, I still think the introductory 
address of the chairman was the gem of the evening. 

Called upon some years since to address an audience 
of several thousand people in an Indiana city, on the subject 
of temperance, I rose at the signal of the chairman, in all 
the majesty of my six foot two, to calmly argue with that 
great assembly for an hour and a half, after such an intro- 
duction as: "Ladies and gentlemen; I take pleasure in in- 
troducing Lou J. Beauchamp, of Hamilton, Ohio. A lean 
dog for a long race." The introducer's reasoning was correct. 
It was a long race, since I had not at that time fully digested 
the wise saying of the late Josh Billings, that " if a man can't 
strike oil in sixty minutes he's either got a poor auger, or he's 
boring in the wrong place." 

Unquestionably the most original, and at the same time 
the most pleasant, introduction that ever fell to the lot of a 
public speaker was experienced by my learned and loyal 
friend, the Hon. John Sobieski, a decendant of the great 
Polish patriot and martyr, an exile himself, and for several 
years member of the Illinois Legislature. He was engaged 
some years since by a lecture committee in a Wisconsin city 
to deliver his famous lecture on " The Story of Poland; Her 
Heroes and Martyrs." Some member of the committee, just 
before the lecture, whispered to the chairman that the lectur- 
er was the descendant of the great Polish officer, Sobieski, 
who was executed for patriotism. Imagine the consternation 
of lecturer, committeemen and audience when the chairman 
soberly, and seemingly with reluctance, introduced the 
speaker as " the son of a police officer who was hung for 
stealing potatoes." The chairman, although the Mayor of 
the city, was evidently not up in history. 

At Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the principal committee- 
man at one of my engagements there was an honest German. 

184' 



He had selected and brought the chairman to the platform, 
but concluding that that worthy needed assistance he turned 
to the audience as he was about to leave the platform, on 
which the chairman and myself were seated, and said: 
<l ,Laties und shentlemen, de kevire (phonetic spelling of 
'choir' as he pronounced it) vill sing a song; Mister Smit, de 
preacher, vill pray; den de ke-vire will sing some more, und 
den our paid speaker vill speak." And inspired by such an 
introduction, I did speak. 

A learned gentleman from Maine, who had an " Hon." 
before his name, was my chairman once, and his introductory 
speech occupied forty minutes. A little worn at its con- 
clusion, and naturally somewhat upset, I only occupied 
thirty -five minutes in my address. It is due the chairman's 
erudition to admit that the forty minutes were not devoted to 
presenting the merits of the advertised lecturer to the 
audience, but rather to the making of a fairly good speech 
on the question which I had been invited to present from my 
standpoint to that particular gathering. 

A Canadian chairman, as a general thing, introduces a 
lecturer neatly, courteously, and with dignity, and then en- 
deavors to occupy his position in a grave, decorous fashion, 
seldom allowing himself to be moved by either the logic, 
eloquence, pathos or humor of the lecturer. If he has been 
moved he shows it in his concluding remarks," while putting 
the vote of thanks which is usually given a lecturer in 
England and its territories. An American chairman, on the 
contrary, enters as fully into the address as the most im- 
pressionable person in the audience, and applauds, laughs or 
weeps, with no endeavor whatever to hide his feelings be- 
hind the dignity of his high position. 

I used to think that one of the chief sources of pleasure 
a lecturer would find would be in the variety of his audiences, 
in the many different faces and the ever changing tout en- 
semble of the gatherings before which he stood. But this be- 

185 



lief was soon taken from me by the cold facts of experience. 
Halls and churches may differ in size, form and decoration, 
but audiences all look alike. One may address a large audi- 
ence one night in New York, the next night in Cleveland, 
the ni^ht following in Cincinnati, then on through Louisville 
and Nashville, down to the Gulf, and were it not for the 
differences in opera houses or churches, could easily imagine 
he had been speaking to the same audience night after night. 

This has reference, of course, to the appearance of the 
audiences as viewed from the platform, and not to their 
treatment of the speaker and his subject. Audiences may 
look alike, but they don't act alike. Two audiences in cities 
but a dozen miles apart will differ in their reception of a lec- 
turer and his subject. One audience will welcome a lecturer 
with applause at his entrance; the next waits to see if he is 
worth applauding. One audience cheers to the echo as the 
speaker tells of some deed of daring upon one of the world's 
great battle-fields ; the next audience hears the same tale in 
perfect silence, but may cheer itself hoarse at a humorous 
anecdote, which had barely excited the former audience to a 
considerate smile. Now and then an audience is found that 
cheers or applauds whenever the lecturer stops for breath, 
and again I have frequently lectured where no sound of ap- 
proval was heard during the entire evening. Yet an imme- 
diate engagement for an early return date would prove that 
the lecture had been satisfactory to the committee and audi- 
ence. In fact, a lecturer does not need applause to tell him 
that he has won his audience. The upturned faces tell the 
tale. One of our humorists ( wasn't it poor Charley Browne?) 
said that " a lecture was a success if more people remained 
in than went out during its delivery. " 

Certain audiences seem to take the lecturer into their 
good graces at once, and so long as he remains in the neigh- 
borhood the people vie with one another in paying him 
courtesy and making him feel among friends. The next 

186 



audience, on the contrary, may hear him patiently, courteously, 
and even enthusiastically, and yet will file out of the hall, 
and out of the speaker's life, with heads erect, as if saying : 
"You have amused, entertained or instructed us; we have 
paid the fee and are square with you. We owe you nothing, 
not even courtesy. " 

These differences of audiences are not due to sectional 
or geographical causes. The various audiences described 
can be found within any circle large enough to include a half- 
dozen good lecture cities or towns. Like the tariff question, 
as viewed by the late General Hancock, " it is a purely local 
matter. " 

At Niles, Ohio, I had occasion to use an anecdote of a 
drunken Irishman, in illustrating some particular point, and 
as I finished it to the general amusement of the audience, a 
tipsy Irishman, who had evidently taken umbrage at the story, 
sprang to his feet about half way down the aisle, and cried 
out : What the divil's the difference betwane a drunken Irish- 
man and a Yankee lecturer?" " Thirty feet," I replied, on 
the instant, and the quickness of the retort, together with its 
good humor and aptness, not only brought down the house, 
but won an apology from the Hibernian after the lecture. 
Woe be to the lecturer, or political speaker, who cannot turn 
the laugh instantly on an irrelevant questioner or interrupter. 
Of course, a pertinent question demands a courteous answer, 
but occasionally a fool has something to say, who must be 
instantly laughed at or ridiculed off the floor, or his subsequent 
interruptions will cause annoyance and trouble. Of course, 
such experiences are more common to political speakers, but 
they have not infrequently happened to the writer, and, to 
his certain knowledge, to several other platform speakers. 

At Mayfield, Ky., recently, I was compelled to retire 
from the platform for a time, unable to control my laughter 
at sight of a grave gentleman sitting directly in front of a hot 



187 



stove, who had hoisted a huge umbrella as a protection 
against the heat. 

Among the experiences of a lecturer none are more 
worthy of note than the occasional visit of some good, moth- 
erly-looking woman, who brings with her a big-footed, freckled 
fellow, too large to be a boy, and not quite large enough to 
be a man, and who asks, in behalf of the boy aforesaid, if the 
lecturer thinks there is any chance for her " Jim to get a job 
o' lecturin". Jim's read an awful sight, and can speak nigh 
a hundred pieces without any book or nothing, and besides 
he don't seem to take to any trade, and I thought maybe he 
might make a purty good speecher." 

One may contentedly listen to and sympathize with such 
a woman, but I have been visited at times by fourth-class 
lawyers and self-sufficient but inefficient teachers, the bulk of 
whose stock in trade seemed to be assurance, who desired to 
know if I had any old lectures I had got tired of using, and 
would sell or give them, as they were thinking of "adopting 
the platform " as a profession. Such applicants always re- 
ceived scant courtesy, much less any sympathy. I have often 
wished that I could be present and hear such an application 
made to Joseph Cook, or that king of the platform, the late 
Henry Ward Beecher. 

Taking it all in all, the life of a lecturer is hardly as en- 
joyable as I used to think it must be. True, in going from 
one end of the country to the other, year after year, one gets 
well acquainted with his native land and its people, but some- 
how or other, when the season's work is over, he seems to 
remember more perfectly the damp beds, the close rooms, 
the ill-cooked meals, and the unresponsive audiences, than 
the big-brained and large-hearted men and women he met, 
and the brighter moments of days that had so much of dark- 
ness in them, because of the absence of the loved ones whose 
presence makes light for every moment and every place. 



A TOntiTer's Start). 



One died " on the field of honor," 

Before Shiloh's murderous fire, 
And he's lying low, where the flowers blow, 

By the side of his long dead sire. 

My other, my fair-browed Benjamin, 
Too young-for that long, grim fight, 

Remained at home by his mother's side, 
And I tried to raise him right. 

But the men of our little hamlet — 

They were godly men and true — 
Took a fee from a tavern-keeper, 

For all we mothers could do. 

They said that the money would help them 

To lay new pavements down; 
And it did, but the bricks were set in blood, 

All around and through the town. 

And Benjamin, last of his mother's four, 

Went into the place one night, 
And they gave him drink, and led him to-play, 

And he felt it must be right; 

For the village fathers had blessed the place 

And their wise permit to sell 
Was nailed up, writ in good round hand, 

Where the lamplight on it fell. 

And night by night, and day by day, 

My Benjamin went and came; 
His eyes took on a glaring look, 

And his face a look of shame. 

I tried to warn and I tried to save, 
But he laughed all my fears away, 

And said the good men knew what was best 
When they took the saloon man's pay. 

I nursed my fears, and prayed to God 

That my boy might not go 
Through the winding ways of deadly drink 

To the drunkard's home below. 

I even went to the wise men 

Who rule our little town, 
And told them the curse their license act 

On our hearts was bringing down. 

189 



But they laughed at me for'a woman 

Wiio knew no business ways; 
I told 'em I only knew my boy, 

And wanted him all my days. 

They said there was no such danger 

As my fond heart pictured out, 
And that they were able to run the town, 

And wanted no women about. 

I told 'em they'd better have women 
Than men who could not understand 

That a license to sell meant sorrow and crime 
By the written law of the land. 

And they laughed and called me a foolish soul ; 

Though they could see the big tears start, 
They could not feel as a mother feels 

With a wearing pain at her heart. 

At last it came, as I knew it would — 

A night when my boy, drink-wild, 
Was carried home; and on my breast, 

Where he lay when a little child, 

He rested for just a moment, 

And then, with a maniac's shout, 
He tore himself from his mother's arms, 

And his ruined life went out. 

"Woe unto him who giveth drink 

To his neighbor," said our God; 
And the wise men of our village 

Will have to bow to the rod. 

For had they not taken dollars 

From the man who wanted to sell, 
He could not have put the bottle 

To the lips I loved so well. 

They nerved his arm with their license 

To hand the bottle round, 
And it rested against my boy's lips — 

And he's lying under the ground. 

One died "on the field of honor"; 

With the heroes of old he'll stand 
In the grand review on the judgment day, 

Far up in the better land. 

The other, my fair-browed Benjamin, 

Must go to the drunkard's place, 
Where the men who for dollars sold him to death 

Will meet him face to face. 

190 



&Iuiags Tell flatter. 

Until I left the profession to devote my time to the lec- 
ture field, I was a newspaper man, one of that army of 
tireless workers whose duty it is to watch the world's inner 
and outer life, and tell the whole story of man and woman's 
daily existence, whether it be good or bad, right or wrong, 
noble or shameful. And it is little wonder if many of our 
oldest newspaper men are pessimists. There seems to be so 
much of the bad, and so little of the good to be seen on the 
reporter's daily rounds. But I believe pessimism would 
not be adopted by the journalist, if he only had more time to 
give to himself, and was not compelled to devote all his wak- 
ing hours to the ceaseless grind of his profession. There is a 
Talmage for every Harry Hill, a Peter Cooper for every 
John Sullivan, a Comstock for every Richard K. Fox. The 
trouble is, however, that the good men are unobtrusive, even 
in their most princely acts of good, while the bad men are 
always posing to catch the reportorial eye, and for once that the 
scribe is assigned to the home of the benevolent, he is sent 
a dozen times to the dens of infamy to report some crime. 
It is little wonder that such experiences soon rob him of what 
optimism might have been instilled into his nature by happy 
home experience before he joined the army of scribes. 

Seeing thus continually the dark side of life, and com- 
pelled to be an amateur detective in working up the story of 
every wrong he reports, that not only the end, but the begin- 
ning as well, can be laid before his readers, the newspaper 
man is well fitted to talk with young people on the things of 
daily life that go to make or mark the character for time and 

191 



eternity. And out of the note-book of a newspaper man's 
experience I want to talk to the young girls who may read 
this volume. 

An ordinary case of murder, where the victim is a rough 
who has met his death at the hands of a former boon com- 
panion, or the suicide of some discontented man, who, 
believing that the world owed him a living, was too lazy 
to collect it by honest work, does not draw very heavily on 
the reporter's small stock of sympathy. By such dead bodies 
the reporter stands as unconcerned as if they had never held 
a soul. But when he stands beside the cold form of some 
young girl, who with her own hand has solved the mystery 
that awaits us all the other side of the death chamber, be- 
cause of a man's treachery and false vows, then something 
tugs at the heart of the oldest reporter, and his tears mingle 
involuntarily with those of the broken-hearted parents and 
friends. A dead president or millionaire is-only so much 
inert matter to the average reporter, but a self-murdered girl 
is something different, and beside her the journalist drops his 
professional apathy, and becomes the brother, father, or 
lover; and as one or the other of these he puts himself in the 
place of those who hold like relation with the dead. 

And right here I want to say to the girls who may read 
this article, that in all my newspaper experience I was never 
called upon to report the suicide or murder of a young girl, 
that I could not trace the beginning of her terrible end to 
the time when she first withdrew her confidence from mother. 
The moment a girl commences to do anything, or go to any 
place concerning which she is ashamed or afraid to "tell 
mother," that moment she opens a gate that leads to a path 
that ends only in disgrace. 

A year ago a young girl in Sacramento shot her betrayer, 
and then committed suicide. Just before she died, she rallied 
from her stupor for a%oraent and said to her attendant: 
" Please don't tell mother." If the poor girl had only told 

192 



mother long before she would not have died thus in dishonor, 
a murderess and a suicide. But like most young girls of to- 
day this one may have thought that mother was a little old- 
fashioned, and hardly competent to decide what was best for 
a young girl under the changed conditions of modern society. 
So she took counsel only with her own desires, and the end 
was death. Mother may be old-fashioned, girls, but she can 
tell a libertine from a gentleman as far as she can see him. 
She can't play progressive euchre, perhaps, but she can tell 
you just where in the bible can be found the verse that 
promises length of days to those who honor their parents. 
Mother's hands are wrinkled and knotted and chapped, but 
that was because she was washing the dishes while you, my 
girl, was in the parlor singing "What is home without a 
mother," to that young dude who told you he read Shakes- 
peare "when it first came out." While the crows-feet were 
coming around mother's eyes she was gathering experience, 
daughter, and if you will avail yourself of it you will never 
have cause to regret it. 

Two years ago I attended the funeral of a young bride 
at Paducah, Ky. I won't mention any names, for there is 
no need of it. She was only eighteen years old when she 
died, and had been a bride but four months. Her husband 
was a congressman's son, but his high social position and 
brains did not keep him from the grog-shop. The poorgirl's 
parents feared the end, and when they learned that Lucy was 
going to entertainments with the young man, they begged 
her to give him up. But matters had already gone too far, 
although not a word had been told to mother, and one night 
the couple eloped and were married. Then to a neighboring 
large city the young couple went to commence their new life. 
But there were too many saloons and gambling rooms in the 
city, and into these went the young husband's money and 
honor, and the young wife's jewels and happiness. In four 
months the end came. The wife awoke one morning and 

i93 



found herself alone in their poorly furnished room. By her 
side lay a note from her husband, which told her in cold, 
curt words, that he had deserted her, and that she had better 
start home at once. But she could not go home and face 
mother. She remembered how she had chose her own path, 
and never told her mother a word about it, until it had all 
been marked out clear to the very end of life. She was at 
the end now, and the end was all dark. Rather than face 
mother and her old friends she chose to face God, himself, 
and taking her husband's razor from the bureau drawer, she 
laid its bright blade on her fair, white throat and one more 
girl who failed to "tell mother," was at rest. Just one case 
out of a thousand, girls. • Read to-morrow's paper and you 
will find another one. They happen almost daily. 

Whenever a girl friend asks you to go to any place with 
her, and when you tell her you fear mother would not permit 
you to go, the girl then cautions you not to say anything to 
your mother about it, you had better leave her then and there, 
and permit her to drop out of your list of acquaintances. 
Have you ever noticed that no one has ever cautioned you, 
when they wanted you to go with them to church, or prayer- 
meeting, or Sunday-school ? Such a caution comes only 
when you are asked to take a walk after school on some pub- 
lic street where the so-called "mashers," or male flirts are to 
be found. And so many good girls think there is no danger 
in just a slight flirtation ! But girls, I have stood beside the 
dead bodies of nineteen girls who thought that, and most of 
them were mothers and not wives, and some had drowned 
themselves, and some committed suicide with knives, and 
others with poison or the pistol, and one had hung herself. 
Two of them had been brutally murdered by their betrayers, 
that discovery of their trouble might not lead to the punish- 
ment of the seducer. And every one of these poor girls were 
victims of not telling mother. 



194 



The young man who asks you to go to a dance or a show 
with him, and tells you to tell mother that you are only going 
to call on a young lady friend, is a seducer at heart. No 
respectable young man will go himself to a place of which he 
would not want a good woman to know, let alone asking a 
good girl to go with him. Tell such a young man that you 
prefer to remain home with mother, than to go to a place he 
knows mother would not approve of, and the next time he 
lifts his hat to you give him " the cut direct," by which he 
may know you have dropped him from your list of friends. 
It's the only safe way, girls. 

And another thing, girls; dont "keep company" with a 
drinking man, no matter how moderate he may claim to be 
in desire for intoxicants. The respect, and even the affection 
such a man may have for you, when sober, may change to 
passion's deadly desires, when he is even but slightly under 
the influence of drink, and you may be subjected to insult of 
the deadliest kind. Strong drink is the devil's chief instru- 
ment in winning souls, and it has all of his devilish charac- 
teristics in it. A single glass can make a good man forget 
his long life of purity, and honor; can make youth forget his 
pure sisters at home, and his earlier life of cleanliness, and 
the saint under its influence is for once the sinner. If a young 
man whom you like asks for companionship with you, tell 
him so long as he and the saloon-keeper are out of partnership 
you have no objection, providing mother is willing, but as 
soon as \\\s appetite takes him into a grog-shop he can stay 
on the other side of your father's front door. 

If this advice comes too late to any one who shall read it, 
and she has already accepted the company of a drinking young 
man, let me insist upon it that the matter shall go no farther. 
If he asks for your hand in marriage put him on immediate 
probation to let drink alone, and not expect a favorable an- 
swer to his proposition till he and his appetite have dissolved 
partnership forever. Don't tell me that you can reform a 

i95 






man with an appetite after the wedding. A man who won't 
stop drinking for the girl he loves, and who does'nt belong to 
him, is not going to stop drinking for the wife he has, and 
who can't get away from him. In ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred where a young girl marries a man to reform him, 
she marries a drunkard and he marries a fool. It may be 
champagne and broadcloth and silk at the start, dear girl, 
but the end will very probably be hunger and rags and the 
poor fund. I know one exception to this gloomy picture, 
girls, and my wife could tell you about if she would, but for 
this one exception I can remember more than ninety-nine on 
the dark side, during my experience as a newspaper man. 

The trouble with too many young girls to-day is, that 
they fear to refuse their first offer lest they may not get an- 
other one, and thus be compelled to live and die old maids. 
My good girls, you had better live old maids to the age of a 
hundred, with nothing better to kiss than an old tortoise shell 
cat, and die in the odor of sanctity, and go to heaven where 
you'll forget you were ever an old maid before you've been 
there ten minutes, than to marry the first fellow that asks you, 
only to find out, when too late, that you have married a 
drunkard and a brute, or a poor little seven by nine dude, 
who only got married because he was afraid to sleep alone, 
and whom you will have to support by your own exertions. 
Some of the best women that ever lived were old maids, 
girls, and some of the world's meanest women would have 
been of far greater use to the world if they had been of the 
same class. The highest aim of a girl's life is not necessarily 
marriage. I can't help but think that the world would have 
been a good deal worse than it is, if Frances E. Willard and 
Susan B. Anthony had snapped at the first fellow that offered 
himself when they were sixteen. Of course I don't mean 
that either of these dear women are old maids, but they are 
at least old enough to know that single-blessedness, so-called, 
is no bar to high endeavor and noble deeds for the world's 

196 



advancement. And single-blessedness has no dishonor, or 
self-imposed want in it, and it beats double-cussedness out 
of sight. 

If I was asked to invent a motto to rule a young girl's 
life, a motto to be placed on the walls of every school, from 
the lowest grade of the public school up to famed Vassar, it 
would simply be : 

ALWAYS TELL MOTHER. 



§>n "-Runs the 3ttarld &vmv. 



"Give me but gold," the beggar cried, 

"And the world shall blossom and bloom 
As it has not done since the Eden days 
Were brought out of chaos and gloom. 
I will drive gaunt hunger from off the earth, 
The poor into plenty shall have a new birth, 
The heavy hearts shall have cause for mirth, 
And in pleasure shall all abide." 

And a message came in legal lore : 

"Jle is dead, and his wealth is thine." 
He signed the papers and got the gold, 
And in velvet sat at his wine. 
The winds without howled shrill and cold ; 
In rags and tatters a woman old 
Came begging, for hunger had made her bold, 
And he spurned her from his door. 



197 



Haui to L,iur. 

A TEN MINUTE SERMON. 



" Then let us fill 
This little interval, this pause of life, 
With all the virtues we can crowd into it.' : 

— Addison 's Cato. 

Sardanapalus, the ancient autocrat of the Orient, once 
formulated an expression, that speedily became an aphorism, as 
follows: " Eat, drink and love; all the rest are not worth a 
fillip." Although the critical minds of the ages have looked 
upon this trite utterance as blasphemous, it may yet be looked 
upon with kindlier thought. Generated in a brain entirely 
gross and material, it has been accepted as a species of mor- 
al (or perhaps immoral) shibboleth, by a certain class of 
life's students since Sardanapalus' day. These followers of 
the ancient Greek have closely observed the salient features 
of his worldly philosophical cry, and their lives have been 
one long endeavor to sip all the sweets from the flowers of 
existence without paying for their sustenance by leaving, as 
does the bee, a hive of honey. Their gods have ever been 
the lusts of body, mind and soul, and no unbeaten track of 
the world's vast maze has been opened by these misguided 
mortals to add another chapter to the history of creation. 
Satisfied when the baser man was satiated, they have taken 
life as a game in which the winner was he who tasted the 
least of bitterness. 

But the utterance of the dead Greek may be looked 
upon in a better sense. We have a right to enjoy life. Our 
entrance into the world gives us power to do but two things 



— to live and to die. Nothing else is obligatory upon us 
from the start. Having then these two things to accomplish, 
it is best that we do them well. Each should be made 
the most of. 

" Since every man is born to die, 

And none can boast sincere felicity, 

With equal minds, what happens let us bear, 

Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things beyond a care. 

Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend : 

The world's our aim, and death the journey's end.'" 

So said Dryden, and in such a sense it is well to took 
upon these two sole prerogatives of our existence. It is a 
duty we owe to the one All-Wise to go over the journey of 
life cheerfully, and not as the slave, whip-marked, goes to 
his daily toil. Surely this world is bright enough for song 
and jest and merry speech. Dark are the clouds at times, 
but never yet so dark that there comes not a sunbeam soon 
or late. Why give up hope if the heavens be black and 
the heart heavy ? 

" Better to hope, though the clouds hang low, 

And to keep the eyes still lifted, 
For the sweet blue sky will soon peep through, 

When the ominous clouds have shifted. 
There was never a night without a day, 

Nor an evening without a morning; 
And the darkest hour, the proverb goes, 

Is the hour before the dawning.'' 

We have a right to " eat, drink and love," if we go no 
farther and assert that "all the rest is not worth a fillip." 
We have a right to the sunshine, the carol of the lark, and 
the bird within the heart. He who gave us life, gave the 
beautiful as its accompaniment, and he who accepts the gift 
and lives happily is the wisest of all. Let priests in dungeon 
cell whip the tender flesh, and make each nerve to fret in the 
name of God, if they will. They are as far from the golden 
mean of the Great Creator's intention as was Sardanapalus in 

199 



his but half-wise aphorism. Surely the builder of the wond- 
rous mechanism of the violet did not give that tiny flower to 
us, if it were not to inhale the fragrance. The piping choirs 
of the forest were not sent with man into existence if man's 
ear was to be closed to the music of the birds. The sun was 
not created that man should turn from its cheering rays. 
There was a purpose in these brighter gifts that came with 
the great gift of creation, and the wise man accepts them all 
with thanks, and mingles his praises with the matins of the 
birds and his gratitude with their vespers. 

A material life, like that advised by the Greek, is never 
successful or happy. We have not lived all of life until the 
moment of our death, and the life that has been wholly 
devoted to pleasure never ends well when the vast mechanism 
is being stilled by the hand of disease. But he who takes 
his pleasure wisely, who "eats, drinks and loves," and yet 
does all in the name of good intentions and laudable desires; 
who smiles when the birds sing, and the sun shines, and can 
accept his share of clouds and sorrow with uplifted eyes, and 
a heart without rebellion, will die well, and so have lived 
successfully. 

Life is not, as Shakespeare said: "A tale told by an 
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It is the 
highest duty of the created to the Creator. It is something 
given in trust, as were the talent to the servants of the holy 
writ, to be answered for at the last, and woe to him whose 
life has been buried and unproductive. Life is a debt we 
owe, and its payment depends upon its accomplishments. 
He who makes one blade of grass the more to brighten the 
plain has paid his debt, and the gates will open to his depart- 
ing soul. He who has taught the ignorant child to read the 
printed page will get a receipt in full. He who lightened 
the burden from the bent back of the slave, although his 
own existence may have paid therefor, stands square upon 
the book balanced by the accounts of Heaven. Nihilism,. 

200 



with its shameless ignorance, may murder kings, but kings 
who have made the sufferings of the slave to cease can well 
afford to die. Blind hate and sectional prejudice may lay low 
the ruler of a republic, but that ruler who first made a re- 
public of his nation by freeing the limbs of the oppressed 
from the shackles of their slavery can afford to lay his life 
for judgment before Him who gave it. 

Good living advised by Sardanapalus, is not inconsistent 
with good dying. There is nothing irreligious in the well 
browned cake, the dainty conserve, the regal haunch of mut- 
ton. These are not sins against the soul, yet all these things 
become sins if life has no further aim. "The glutton and 
the drunkard shall come to poverty; drowsiness shall clothe 
him as with a garment." 

The good things of life were given by God to man. 
He who made us in His own image wants us to live bright 
and sunshiny lives, and though he send clouds and cares and 
sorrows, there is compensation in abundance. Let us not 
emulate the extreme of the Greek, upon the one hand, nor 
that of the anchorite upon the other. Let us live for the 
shining of the sun, the singing of the birds, the prattle of the 
babe. Let us take these things gladsomely and the darker 
clouds and burdens of existence uncomplainingly, looking 
ever higher and higher to the One wiser than we, who " doeth 
all things well." Let us find the golden mean of life and 
walk along its flower-strewn path, and God will not be mocked 
if we sing a wordly song, or sup upon the dainties of the 
epicure. And when we, too, are about to take the one final 
step into the beyond, let us leave life gladly behind us, and 
go with a smile and a song into the grave; rather 

"As one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, 
And lies down to pleasant slumber." 



HInmTsiucrai. 



If we could see the end 

Waiting for us down the way, 
The coming of life's night time — 

The closing of life's day ; 
The last of all our trials, our troubles and our pains, 

The last of all our losses, the last of all our gains; 
Would the hours seem as moments, 

Or would they seem too long? 
Would our hearts beat faint and fainter, 

Or would they beat more strong? 

There are joys that give us heartaches, 

There are pains that seem as kisses; 
There are depths that lift us skyward, 

There are heights that seem abysses : 
And our lives are not the brightest 

When the sunniest hours enfold them ; 
Our hearts are often lightest 

When the heaviest sorrows hold them. 

And these strange contrary feelings 

Make us hold life's thread in wonder, 
As we see by faith no farther 

Than by sight, wherewith we blunder; 
So we look toward the ending 

Of our cares, and trials, and blisses, 
And ask if death is darkness, 

Or only light and kisses. 
But no answering word comes to us — 

No replies, and no suggestions; 
Doubt and fear each hour assail us, 

Yet each hour brings newer questions. 

And the end, though coming nearer, 

Is no nearer in its easing. 
For the heart keeps on its wondering, 

And the soul keeps on its teasing; 
And the Sphinx of doubt and fear, 

Still the soul doth tear and rend, 
With its joyful, vexful question — 

What if we could see the end ? 



A (Crank's Ansiurrs ta a Foal's (Objections. 



No. I. 



The opponents of Prohibition have a stock set of objections which 
they fire at us day after day in about the order indicated. To these 
objections I append my stock answers : 

" Lfigh License will close half the saloons." 

What of it? High License does not take the appetite 
for drink out of half the drinkers in the community. Conse- 
quently, with the old number of drinkers, the closing of half 
the saloons only means double business for the half able to 
pay the High License. The saloon-keepers unable to pay 
the license hire'out to those who can pay it, and thus take 
care of their old customers in the new places. Wherein is 
the gain to the temperance cause? 

" High License will close the low Doggeries. 

The old drunkard we have little hope of: we are after 
the rising generation. The young learn to drink in the fine 
saloons owned by men able to pay any license. These places 
give them their early teachings and then promote them to the 
secondary department, the low groggeries, to have their 
education in the drink ..college "finished.'' From the low 
doggeries they graduate into the gutter and the grave. And 
tnere must always be both the low and the high saloons so 
long as the whisky seller is a "political quantity.'' as he is 
to-day in every city in thej land. If he can't pay High 
License with the profits of his traded he can get it paid by 
"political 'fluence.'" Help us to shut up the primary depart- 
ment in the school of vice — the high-toned saloon— and we 
can soon stamp out the doggeries. 

203 



" The lice?ise money gives a revenue to the town." 

Yes! And the licensed traffic in drink gives a revenue 
to the jailer, the hangman, and the cemetery association. It 
gives money enough to pay for a hearse, and a coffin, and we, 
the parents, furnish the corpses. Ten cents worth of licensed 
whisky makes a man commit a murder. The town gets two 
cents in revenue, perhaps buries the victim, pays $2,000 to 
try the murderer, and then gives the sheriff $200 for hanging 
him. Profit to the town — I haven't time to figure it out. 

" High License puts the sale of liquor into the hands 0/ more 
respectable men." 

What has the respectability of the seller got to do with 
the want of respectability in that which he sells, and the alto- 
gether damnable results of that which he sells? II a minister 
of the Gospel gives your boy drink, and it produces drunken- 
ness, congestion of the brain, and death, you will not bewail 
his loss, will you? No; you will merely thank God that your 
boy died at the hands of a most respectable member of 
society. But I fear, my man, you can't get your boy's mother 
to look upon his loss in that light. An angel from Heaven 
might sell drink, but it would still be that " invisible spirit of 
wine," which Shakespeare, having no better name, conclud- 
ed to call "devil," and nothing which is devilish can have 
any respectability about it. 

" High License lowers my taxes." 

Yes — but at the spigot; you still lose at the bung-hole. 
The saloon-keeper pays $100 per year to sell drink, takes 
$10,000 out of the people's pockets, and causes $5,000 worth 
of legal expenses in trying the criminals made by his drink. 
But if the crimes cost less than the license fees come to, these 
latter, while lowering your taxes, would lower your boys as 
well, lower your neighbors, lower the moral and spiritual 
condition of your community, and lower you, yourself; for a 

204 



man who is willing to go into partnership with a whisky seller, 
to get a few cents knocked off his taxes, gets a little lower 
than the saloon-keeper, for from the latter we look for 
nothing better. 

"But Fm a Christian and a temperance man, sir-, you 
surely would not make me a partner with the seller of drink?" 

Oh yes! Back of the saloon-keeper stands his license; 
back of his license stands the party that granted it; back of 
the party that granted it stands the sovereign people ; and so 
long as the people are satisfied with political parties that grant 
license and permission to kill to the liquor traffic, that long 
the people must be satisfied at being placed in the Legalized 
Murder Firm of " Whisky, Party and People" (unlimited). 
Of course you're a Christian, but you're not working at your 
religious trade steadily. The young man who bit into a cod- 
fish ball thinking it was a doughnut, thought there "was some- 
thing dead in that doughnut." There seems to be something 
dead in the Christianity of that man who can vote the same 
ticket with the whisky seller and the political demagogues 
and political demijohns. What satisfies a whisky-seller po- 
litically can't satisfy a clean christian. When the mule got 
its hind hoof in the stirrup in kicking at the flies, the Dutch- 
man on its back said: "Veil, if you're going to get on, I'm 
going to get off." Get off that tricky political mule, brother, 
and prove your Christianity. 

" But Prohibition don't prohibit!" 

Why? 

The law is violated. 

Go to ! Get thee to a hennery and pray for brains. We 
are living this side of the millennium, brother, and just now 
God's prohibitory laws don't prohibit; that is if violations of 
laws so prove. "Thou shalt not kill," said God; yet there 
is a murder in this country every fifty minutes. "Thou shalt 
not steal," said God; but there is a theft of over $100 in 

205 



value every ten minutes in this country, and a petty theft 
every three minutes. According to your argument God's 
prohibitory laws are a failure, and they should be wiped off 
his statutes and the church should issue High License to kill 
and steal. I say, brother, wouldn't you take out a license 
and go gunning yourself occasionally? The Prohibition law, 
however, does prohibit every body but criminals and outlaws 
from violating it. And from the beginning that class have 
had to be educated x by the penalties attached to the laws, 
rather than by the laws themselves. The men who are viola- 
ting our prohibition laws, in deep, dark dens where God's 
sunlight never enters, are being slowing but surely unearthed, 
as we draw nearer to our country's moral millennium, and 
when they are given six months in jail on dried apples for 
breakfast, warm-water for dinner and "swell-up" for supper, 
they are no longer like you, brother. They are thoroughly 
convinced that Prohibition does prohibit. If Prohibition 
does not prohibit, it can only be proven on the same line of 
reason which would argue that Christianity does not Christ- 
ianize, because poor little Bobbie Ingersoll, the dear soul, is 
not yet a Methodist preacher. 

" We are not educated up to Prohibition, and must not pass 
laws in advance of the people!' 

You don't say so? Why, my dear brother, that's just 
what The Voice and the hundred other papers and the 
thousands of speakers are at work at now, and we want the 
law so as to know where to take you fellows who are 
" down." The law educates. If Moses had told his God 
that the prohibitory laws of the Ten Commandments were 
"too far up" for the people, the children of Israel would 
have had a new leader in about fifteen minutes. God, how- 
ever, gave Moses the laws and sent him down the mountains 
to bring the people up to those laws. Help us to get a pro- 
hibitory law, and we will soon get the people right. The 
law will educate the good class, and the criminal class will 
be educated by the penalty attached to the law. 

206 



Lowe's L,ast ^Harris. 



To-day we are walking hand in hand, 
And our loves knit us close as the winds that meet 
And join their forces in one great blast 
Of the winter's cold or the summer's heat, 
To-morrow — who knows ? You may walk alone, 
Or sit by a form strangely still and white, 
That will not respond to your kisses or tears — 
The lips will be cold and the eyes flash no light. 

You will think I am dead, and your heart may ache, 

And your lips will fail to keep back the moan, 

As you think of life's path so dark and drear, 

And you who must travel it ever alone. 

But it will not be so ; men fall to dust, 

But love lives on in an endless life, 

And mine for you will be true and strong, 

And hold you free from all care and strife. 

Nay, do not weep ; it is better so, 

An earth love fails in the crowded street, 

For faces of women have power to change 

The living heart to a living cheat ; 

But the grave lays a bar on love that flies 

As butterflies spring from flower to flower, 

And the love that springs from a dead man's tomb 

Holds fast to its own with a deathless power. 

So let us walk till the shadows come, 

And feel we are one for the years of time; 

The sun will sink from our eyes full soon, 

But will rise at once in a sweeter clime: 

So this earthly body of mine will fall 

By the way, by and by, and the heart grow chill, 

But the love of my soul will follow you on 

And bless you and guard you and guide you still. 

What! tears? Nay, nay, my own true one; 
The journey I take through the dark is brief; 
I shall wake in the land of eternal light, 
And know never more aught of pain or grief ; 
If you cannot live on the love I leave, 
And hunger for more as the years grow late, 
Lie down, bid the heart's faint beating cease, 
And I'll be waiting outside the gate. 

207 



^(Erank's ^nsiur-rs in & Fanl's (Objections. 



No. II. 



" Why don 7 you 7e??iperance cranks enforce the laws we 
now have?" 

How they do throw that question at the "cranks" all 
over the country ! My dear fool, it is easily answered. It 
doesn't do any good. In the first place, the hammer of Dis- 
raeli's logic hit the nail on the head when he said : "A traffic 
that is permitted by law has the right to be protected and 
defended by law." The laws " we now have " are your laws, 
not ours, dear fool. We did not help to pass them, for they 
merely aim at restriction while they permit life to the traffic. 
They aim at restriction— but they don't hit it. They don't 
come any closer to it than the darky thought the cross-eyed 
butcher would come to the bullock's head, which the darky 
was holding by the horns for the butcher to slaughter with 
the ax. " Boss," said the African, "you 'gwine to hit whar 
you look?" "Certainly." "Then, I golly, you hold this 
beast yo'self." Why don't you enforce your own laws. 
When we get Prohibition then we'll enforce it. But after you 
give a man the right to sell whiskey, and he sells it and the 
buyer drinks it, you can't regulate or hinder the results, no 
matter how strong the restrictive features of the permissive 
law may be. You might as well talk about regulating the 
gentleman who presides over Sheol by tying one of Talmage's 
sermons to his caudal appendage. Your little boy gets bit 
by your neighbor's vicious dog. You have the neighbor ar- 
rested for harboring such a beast. Good ! The Mayor fines 

208 



him $10 and costs. Better!! He orders a policeman to kill 
the dog. Best ! ! ! But over the way yonder is the dog of 
drink. The vicious animal attacks your boy, and so injures 
him that he lies prone in the gutter — his body bitten, his mind 
bitten, his soul bitten. Now you come along and say : " Go 
to the laws : enforce them against the keeper of the dog of 
drink," and you send for the officer. Does he arrest Patsy 
McGinnis, the dog's owner? Not much, Mary Ann. He 
sees the dog's chain and a license that you yourself helped to 
put about the dog's neck back of the bar. What does he do ? 
He winks at McGinnis and arrests your boy. What for ? 
For getting bit, my dear fool. The Mayor fines him $10 and 
costs for standing so close to the dog, and then he and you, 
and perhaps your minister, go next day and elect McGinnis 
to the Board of Alderman, and the next week, when your 
boy gets another bite, you come whining to us to ask why we 
don't enforce the laws we now have. They are laws to pro- 
tect the saloon-keeper, Oh, fool, not to protect the boy or the 
home, and that's why we don't waste our time with them, 
but rather are trying to get laws that will work just the 
other way. 

" Why don't you carry on the moral suasion work of pledg- 
ing? That is the only work that is effective.'" 

The question shows that you never have done much of 
that work yourself. Every Prohibitionist in the land was born 
into the Prohibition party out of the moral suasion ranks. 
We tried to kill the liquor traffic by getting the boys to sign 
the pledge, thinking that by taking the calf away the cow 
would go dry ; but just as soon as we got our calf to amble 
away, the whiskey-seller had another calf ready to commence 
at the teat. In other words, we found that while we were 
educating drunkards to become sober men, the open saloons 
were educating sober men to become drunkards. Whenever 
we found a drunkard in the hole of degradation, we lifted him 

209 



up and carried him to the pledge meeting, but we had to leave 
the hole open, and before our backs were turned, some one 
else fell into it. We are still trying to save the drunkard, 
and we think the best way will be to plug up that hole. Did 
you hear of the lady who went into the kitchen and found 
water six inches deep on the floor, and Biddy industriously 
bailing it up. " Why, what's the matter, Biddy?" says the 
mistress. " Faith, mum, some spalpeen left the faucet open, 
and the water has been running the whole night. I'm trying 
to get rid of it, but the more I dip it up and throw it out, the 
more it gets higher, mum." "Well, have you turned the 
faucet off, Bridget ? ' ' Glory to God ! " cried the servant, 
" I niver thought o' that." That was our trouble, dear fool. 
We were bailing the boys out of the stream of drink, while 
the open faucet of the legalized saloon kept the stream bank 
full all the time. So now we carry the pledge in one hand 
for the benefit of the individual, and the ballot in the other 
hand for the benefit of the State and Nation. The one way 
for the victims already made; the other will "turn off the 
faucet," and so stop the making of other victims. 

" You can never build up your new party. J am a Pro- 
hibitionist in principle, but I'll wait fot my party to give it to us." 

All right. Where shall we send you word when your 
party adopts Prohibition, in Heaven or Chicago? Please 
leave your address for the next few centuries ahead. Your 
party is at least thirty-five years old; the other party is some 
years older. Now thirty-five years ago whiskey had the same 
devil of alcohol in it it has to-day. It made murderers, sui- 
cides, paupers, brutes and criminals of all grades then as it 
does now, and yet in all those years your party has done 
nothing. Now if it takes it a third of a century to do nothing, 
how many thirds of centuries more will it take it to do some- 
thing? First class in common-sense arithmetic stand up. 
" A tree is known by'its fruit," and the wise God-man said 



the barren tree should be cut down. Now, your political 
tree hasn't given us much fruit; has it, now? The law by 
which, for so many years, your party got ninety cents on every 
gallon of liquor made and twenty -five dollars from every man 
who sold any of it, hasn't a very fruity flavor, has it ? Well, 
dearly beloved, these are some of the reasons why so many 
of us are trying to cut that tree down. There are too many 
deaths and graves and crimes and heart-aches and soul-wrecks 
every day to permit us to wait for that party's new birth, 
and so we've been doing a little of the " borning" business 
ourselves. The babe was weakly at first, and some of its 
best friends laughed at it, and even its old godmother, Neal 
Dow, never sent it a cup or a spoon. But, Lord bless you, 
how it did grow ! It wears pants and suspenders, and is 
thinking of putting on a long-tailed coat, while its Voice is 
heard from Maine to California. 

" The Democratic party is the party of the people. Can't 
we look for help from that party ? " 

Why, certainly, you can. Get a good compound spy- 
glass and look all you want to. But don't look in hope, 
unless you want to die in despair. Down South the Demo- 
cratic party is doing nobly, but the party, nationally, is 
controlled by its Northern leaders, and they by the Northern 
sellers and the Southern makers, and, consequently, we can 
get nothing from them in a national sense. The only satis- 
faction they have ever given us has been like that given Dennis 
McCarthy by the New York Board of Public Works. He 
went to the Mayor and said: "Say, the wather pipes in me 
house done busted and filled the cellar nearly to the ceiling, 
and drowned forty-seven of my chickens that I kape down 
there." " I've got nothing to do with that," said His Honor; 
" go to the Board of Public Works." " Go to the divil — 
didn't I go to them, and what satisfaction did I get? I told 
them the pipes busted in the cellar and drowned the chickens 



I kape there, and they said to me; ' McCarthy, why thedivil 
don't ye kape ducks? — they'd swim.' " 

" Well, the question will have to be settled some way, but not 
by your party of cranks. The Republican and Democratic parties 
will kill you dead in the next campaign." 

Well, they may kill the party, but they can't kill the 
principle we advocate, for it is based on God's eternal law of 
"Thou shalt not," and God's principles will live till they have 
righted every wrong, wiped away every tear, lifted every 
fallen man, made happy every weeping woman and starving 
child. If your two great parties do " kill us dead " in the 
next campaign, we'll die like our Master died, crucified be- 
tween two — you can put in the appropriate word for yourself, 
dear fool, while 1 sign myself yours truly, 

Lou J. Beauchamp, 
One of the Cranks. 



Lnuc and jOrntb, 



They say she is dead, that her life went out 

Last night as the clock struck eight ; 
That the bride of a year at the altar stood 

Again with another mate ; 
A mate called Death, who bore her away 

To a couch more quiet than mine, 
Where the love kiss comes from the lips of the worm, 

And the grave-damp symbols the wine. 

'Tis false, and the liars who speak it know 

That they lie, for she left me but now, 
With the old-time light shining out of her eyes, 

And the old-time kiss on my brow. 
If death wants her body 'tis his, I say ; 

Her love and her kisses are mine, 
And the love is as sweet as the love of gods, 

And the kisses are sweeter than wine. 



Life's ^tums. 

A TEN MINUTE SERMON. 



How unsatisfying must be the life of that man who is so 
intent upon attaining a goal somewhere in the dim future that 
his vision does not behold the lesser elements that go to make 
up a perfect life. To hurry through the best years we call our 
own in order to accomplish some cherished purpose is to 
resolutely close our eyes to the brightest beams of the sun 
of existence — the little things along the vast causeway of 
human being. 

There are men who, with that utilitarian method that 
comes of over self-sufficiency and want of counterpoise of 
mind, can measure the rainbow with a glance, and wish it 
could be cut into ribbons for the neck-circlet of a this-world 
Diana, who wears corsets and high heeled shoes, and who 
look at the feathery spray of seaweed only as the funda- 
mental principle of iodine with which to ward off the next 
attack of rheumatism, and upon the crocus as so much vera- 
trine to undo the effects of late suppers and want of gastric 
juice. A life made too material is a life only half lived — a 
wasting of the better and finer parts of man's nature. Aph- 
rodite, to the prude, who eats intellectual prunes, and sees 
only prisms, must needs be dressed by the latest modiste 
before becoming presentable, and the Greek Slave is to him 
or her the embodiment of vulgarity and sensuality. Such 
persons go through life as if it were a race for worldly position, 
with their eyes fixed upon some object in the distance while 
they pass by unnoticed the small atoms of beauty lying all 
along their way. 

2I 3 



It is in the little things that may be found hidden the 
sweets of life. The man who treasures the annonymous 
sonnet, clipped from a provincial paper, with more of tender- 
ness than he does his Horace or his Milton ; who weeps 
when he reviews the life and death of Little Nell and of 
Dora, and reads calmly of Napoleon in the Alps, and the 
downfall of Nero; who cares little for Tiberius Caesar breath- 
ing out his gloomy soul, but sorrows with the Vicar of 
Wakefield with all his heart, is the man who lives that each 
day may be full of tenderness, because he stoops to where 
the little things —the mere threads and thrums of life — 
are scattered. 

A Waterloo or Plevna may dot the plain of life with 
grandeur, but what would life be if all its days were to be 
spent directing batteries, charging enemies, and winning 
victories for the ages to tell? There must be a breathing 
spell if man is perfect. A Wellington or a Cromwell is not 
the type of a perfect existance. Nearer akin to super-excel- 
lence is Humboldt directing his energies to the gathering of 
a rare herb, or the examination of a rock in the south of a 
strange continent. 

It is not the memories of the grandest achievements that 
fill the mind of the right-living man with the most pleasure. 
It is the thought of some day long ago, when the hours were 
passed upon a pleasant hillock or beside a babbling brook, 
singing a song of peace, or by an old elm upon a village 
common, that makes the heart calm and satisfied for the time 
being. It is not a Meissonier or a Thompson showing us 
upon canvas the charge at Balaclava or the " Last Attack of 
the Grenadiers " that satisfies us most completely, but a ten- 
der bit of sentiment from some artist hand long motionless, 
and whose name has long since been forgotten, that goes 
deepest into our natures. Neither is it the grand TeDeum, 
swelling from rafter to rafter, that lifts us nearer to heaven, 



214 



but the plaintive, soul-reaching " Nearer, my God, to Thee," 
of a blind singer who died for want of bread. 

We hurry through life too fast, many of us; we have no 
tender thoughts for loved ones, no eyes for bright but unob- 
trusive pictures of life, no ears for words spoken only for the 
one to harken and not the mass. Our eyes, our hands and 
our spiritual eyesight are lifted upwards and onwards, when 
much might be gained by letting them rest for a moment 
under the shade of a poplar tree by the wayside, or upon, a 
bit of meadow wound round by a shining brook that murmurs 
pleasantly as the cattle slake their thirst from its slowly 
flowing current. 

It is the daisies that baby claps its hands over, and not 
the stately calla or the haughty dahlia. It is Sheila we take 
into our hearts and not Corinne. We weep for Mercy 
Merrick and drop only a sigh for Lady Jane Gray's memory. 
We feel for her who bore through life the Scarlet Letter on 
her bosom, while we passed over the history of aDeMaintenon 
or a Jeanne D'Arc unmoved. It is not the lofty deeds of 
bravery nor the grandest flights of fancy that anchor us most 
securely to life's enjoyment and a better moral nature ; it is 
the smaller elements that come to our knowledge from nature 
and the world of art and letters. 

If more of us would scan the things that are lowly, what 
new life would become a part of our being. Some one 
noticed a flower girl in the streets of a city and the world 
bows at the shrine of a Patti; some one stooped to a Nor- 
wegian peasant girl and transformed her into a Nilsson ; a 
Lincoln was pushed up the ladder of fame by some one whose 
eyes were not constantly above the level line of life ; a Burns 
stepped from a plow furrow; a Shakspeare from the hut of 
a woolcomber. 

Just as great men and women have come up from the 
lower walks of life so can man bring himself up higher by 
stooping. We stoop to the pink and inhale a fragrance the 

215 



sunflower does not possess for .all its haughtiness ; we bend to 
the strawberry and find a fruit more luscious than the peach 
with golden cheeks, and apple reddening beyond our reach. 
We lose much of " life's best poetry" by not stooping 
in our hurry-scurry through life to look at beauties by the 
wayside. Life is not all beyond to-day. Did we not press 
onward so swiftly we would have more of sunshine and less 
of shadow, more of joy and less of sorrow. The proper life 
is the life that seizes hold of the joys that are within reach 
and is not constantly struggling and sighing for that which can 
only be attained after years of weary effort. The present has 
all the pleasures the future can possess ; whether we find 
them or not is in ourselves and not in our fates. 




216 



gt jsong For Jk Vnw \ Uuu\ 



Keep ahead of the world, if you can, my boy, 

'Tis the only sure way to succeed, 

If you ere fall behind, 'twill be hard to get back 

To the spot where you once had the lead ; 

And there's no way to win in the battle of life, 

So easy, so safe, and so sure, 

As to have a few dollars ahead of your wants — 

For most of life's ills 'tis the cure. 

But you never get dollars till first you get pence, 

As from acorns the mighty oaks grow; 

Work hard, and woik ever, and save as you toil 

No matter if progress seems slow : 

Thus be true to yourself in the years of your youth, 

And you'll rest without worry when old; 

Save the pennies to-day, into silver they'll turn, 

And the silver will grow into gold. 

Let the fools try to tempt you to pleasures to-day, 
That will take the small coin from your purse ; 
Store your brain in the hours they give to the world 
With knowledge, you'll not be the worse i 
For labor, and study, and saving in youth 
Will give rest and content when you're old 
And the pennies to-day will be silver full soon, 
And (Jie silver will grow into gold. 

Fair Italy lies on the Alps' farther side, 

'Tis the place we have dreamed of alway. 

But those Alps must be climbed by the stout limbs of youth 

Ere by Tiber we pass age away; 

So work, my brave boy, in the years of your strength, 

If you want rest and plenty when old, — 

Take care of your pennies, to silver they'll turn 

And the silver will grow into gold. 




217 



fr Night at a <&zvmnn dtrrus. 



Our tour in foreign lands was drawing to a close. 

We had already " done " England and Scotland, France, 
Switzerland and Italy, and only Belgium and Ireland were 
between us and home, after we should finish Germany. We 
had seen all the sights in all the principal cities of the coun- 
tries named, and had left Heidelberg, its grand old castle, 
and the Big Tun behind us only that morning, and at five 
p. m. landed at Mayence. 

The omnibuses of the hotel were outside the station, and 
as Durkee and I climbed to our usual place on the driver's 
seat, a peculiar feeling came over me. It wasn't homesick- 
ness, for a fellow who has traveled eleven months out of every 
twelve for nearly a decade of years has no right to such feel- 
ing, but I longed for something that would remind me of the 
home country for all that. Suddenly the feeling found ex- 
pression, and I said: 

"Frank, if there is anything in the world that would 
give me a feeling of perfect satisfaction it would be a genu- 
ine, old-fashioned circus. If I could go to a circus tonight I 
would be perfectly happy. I know I could understand it, 
and that's more than I can say of the concerts and theatrical 
entertainments we have been to on this trip;" and Frank was 
of my way of thinking, as his: "You bet your bottom dol- 
lar," immediately told me. 

We had been to the Grand opera at Paris, to a Sunday 
night concert at the Kursaal in Geneva, and to various places 
of amusement in Italy, but not understanding the language 
spoken had lost the greater part of the possible enjoyment. 

218 



But I knew I could understand the circus, and hence my 
soul cried out for such an entertainment. 

Our hotel was situated on the bank of the Rhine, and 
was directly opposite the beautiful Stadt hall, which faced the 
principal public square. In front of it stood a couple of im- 
passive soldiers, who counted our party and watched us close- 
ly as we dismounted from the omnibuses and entered the 
hotel. We had no sooner got to our rooms than the polite 
proprietor was at our door, begging pardon for disturbing us, 
but requesting that we fill up a blank he had the honor of 
offering us, and return to him soon as possible. On examina- 
tion this was found to be a blank form issued by the govern- 
ment, the proper filling up of which was essential to our re- 
maining for any length of time in Germany outside of jail. 
Having no desire to cause the emperor or his family any un- 
easiness I at once proceeded to allay any possible fears they 
might have had by putting down my name, age, nativity, 
place of residence, occupation, destination, (in this world,) 
and probable length of stay in Mayence. All of the party 
having written out the same useful and interesting bits of 
autobiography the landlord gave them to the waiting soldiers, 
who, finding that the number tallied with the tab they kept, 
as we alighted from the omnibuses, saluted the hotel man 
and marched proudly away. 

Having finished this and performed the necessary toilet 
maneuvers, I looked out of the window, and at once remark- 
ed in a tone of the deepest pathos, "Great Guns!" — There 
was a circus tent not fifty yards from the hotel — a genuine, 
old fashioned, one-ringed circus. 

"Hey, Rube," I shouted, and leaving the Duchess to 
fear that I had taken a fit I started frantically on the hunt 
for Durkee. 

Up stairs and down stairs I flew, the while the more or 
less good-looking chamber maids smiled at me in the sweetest 
possible way, evidently imagining that we were all of the 

219 



"rich Americaine" genus, and would come down handsomely 
in the way of fees. At last I found the young fellow in his 
room on the top floor, a little south-east of the evening star, 
and slapping him on the back till I heard his backbone and 
breastbone rub together, I explained my hilarity by saying: 

"Frank, my boy, the Lord still looks after his own; 
ths circus is here." 

I though he would drop dead on the spot. He was as 
delighted over the matter as I was, and after we had hugged 
each other in the exuberance of our feelings, I went down 
stairs to hug the Duchess. It was a good thing none of the 
chambermaids were in sight just then, for I believe on my soul 
I would have shut my eyes and hugged the last one of them. 
I found her small majesty, the Duchess, in great excitement 
over my peculiar actions, but taking her to the window I 
pointed to the circus, and her fears as to my having'gone crazy 
were at once dispelled, and she graciously remarked that I 
had better hurry over and get our seats at once. 

In the hotel office I encountered the minister from Seattle 
and the lady of the Boston Museum of Art, These good 
souls courteously asked the company of the Duchess and 
myself to the concert to be given that evening in the Stadt 
hall opposite. 

"Concert be hanged," I replied, forgetting my politeness 
and my sincere respect for both the preacher and the author- 
ity on art in the excitement of the moment. "I've heard 
singing for the last six weeks without understanding a word, 
and now I'm going where I can understand the whole per- 
formance ; as a genuine American citizen I propose going to 
a genuine American entertainment, a genuine old-fashioned, 
one-ringed circus." 

The lady from Boston never turned a hair, but I could 
see the face of the minister take on a sad expression, and I 
knew the old Adam had got a sudden awakening within him; 
I knew he was for the moment way back of all his dignity 



and his years, and was once more a bare-foot boy following 
the band as it led the old-time circus into his native village. 
When he faced me there was a longing look in his eyes, but 
like a great, good man as he was, he changed it as quickly as 
possible, and endeavored to seem satisfied, and let me say it 
to his credit, he said never a word to me about the sinfulness 
of going to the circus. 

The price of tickets to the circus was from sixty pfenn- 
ings up to two marks, or from twelve to forty cents in our 
money. After getting seats for the Duchess, Durkee and 
myself, I returned to the hotel for dinner, at which meal I 
discovered that all our party save us, were going to the con- 
cert. But I hardly think Patti herself could have got me 
away from that circus. Why, it seemed to me I could smell 
the Fourth ward at Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio, U. S. A., 
whenever I looked at the bills. 

To the credit of the preacher and Boston lady I want to 
say that they went to the concert, and enjoyed themselves, 
but the rest of the party, bless their hypocritical souls, sneak- 
ed into the circus one by one, and I am still glorying in the 
fact that lacking the moral courage to act fairly in the matter, 
they waited till the show commenced and then had to put up 
with the worst seats to be had. "Good enough for them," 
said the Duchess, and as usual the Duchess was right. 
When I get so good I can't go to a circus openly I shall send 
for the undertaker and let him take my measure. 

On entering the circus I was somewhat surprised to see 
a number of soldiers on guard. In times of peace Germany 
has so many soldiers lying around idle, that I suppose the 
government hires them out to do police duty, and help re- 
duce expenses. One of the soldiers came to me and very 
politely informed me that I must not smoke in the circus. 
Surprise number two. The idea of "no smoking" in a 
German circus. From what I had seen of the good natured 
people of that country on the trains and elsewhere I had 



221 



come to the conclusion that one might smoke any where in 
the nation, whether at church, at table, in the concert hall 
or the circus. But he was a pretty big soldier, and under his 
excessive politeness I could see that his mind dwelt largely 
upon the idea that he was there to do his duty under all cir- 
cumstances, so I concluded that I wouldn't smoke until after 
the show. It was a German cigar, anyway, and those who 
have bought the native cigars in that country are aware of 
the fact that in throwing my just lighted weed away I did 
not lose much. 

Speaking of cigars I am put in mind of a purchase of 
some in Heidelberg the day before. Entering the principal 
cigar store I asked for some good smokers, and commenced 
fingering some that were in open boxes on the counter. The 
proprietor, quickly sizing me up, hastily said : "Excuse me, 
but those are cheap cigars, for workingmen ; I will give you 
some aristocratic cigars," and he handed me a box from one 
of the shelves back of the counter. As I had never seen 
any "aristocratic" cigars before I examined them very 
closely, and on his recommending them very highly I pur- 
chased a case full of the smiling dealer. On paying for 
them I found that the price of " aristocratic " cigars in Heidel- 
berg, in the year of grace 1891 was a little over two cents 
each. To this day I am wondering how much the working- 
men of the old university city on the Neckar pay for their 
cigars when they purchase them of the obliging old fellow in 
the big shop near the railway station. 

On entering the circus proper we found our seats com- 
manded a splendid view of the ring, and were vastly more 
comfortable than the dollar seats in an American show of the 
kind. We anxiously awaited the beginning of the entertain- 
ment. Our impatience was somewhat relieved however, by 
the playing of an excellent band. Suddenly the notes of a 
bugle were heard, the orchestra changed the tune instantly, 



the curtain between the dressing room and the ring was 
withdrawn, and the " grand entree" was on. 

I have not space to write of the entire performance, but 
I can honestly say that I never saw a better one. Many of 
the acts were old, but excellently done, and part of them 
were entirely new. A man who was evidently a Mexican 
did one of the best juggling acts I ever witnessed; a couple 
of Americans who had graduated from the variety stage to 
the sawdust circle had an act that was half athletic and half 
comedy that kept us in roars of laugher; there was the 
usual bareback riding, in one case by a sweet faced little 
miss about eight years of age, who had a rope attached to her 
waist, the upper end of which (the rope, not the waist,) was 
fastened on a wooden arm that swung about the centre-pole, 
and which held her safely in the air whenever she fell off the 
horse, which she did several times. A rather thrilling act 
was that of a lion riding a bareback horse. It seemed to me 
that the horse deserved the most praise, and was the best 
trained of the two, for it is certainly no easy matter to get 
one of the equine tribe to perform contentedly with a full 
grown lion on its back. A hurdle race in which the lion, 
horse, and a fine greyhound took part, was decidedly 
interesting. 

The clowns were far above the average in our American 
circuses, and depended more upon their acting than their 
talking to win applause. The principal one appeared in full 
dress. He had evidently been out with the boys during the 
day, and a part of his local admirers had followed him 
into the show. As soon as the clown appeared in the 
ring, one of his admirers aforesaid, as drunk as a lord, greeted 
him with loud and maudlin cries of "Au goost, Au-goost" — 
his name evidently being August. -This was kept up so con- 
tinously, and always to the supreme enjoyment of the audi- 
ence, that the clown, angry and disgusted, left the ring 
several times, but was ordered back by the ring-master. No 

223 



attempt was made to quiet the drunken fellow, and I went 
to sleep that night laughing over the "Au-goost" of the clown's 
loyal, but indiscreet friend. 

Two of this clown's acts were decidedly neat. After his 
temporary absence from the ring his voice was heard calling 
from some point above the ring. The audience and perform- 
ers looked up, and the clown was seen in one of the windows 
on the roof of the circus building, which was a temporary 
wooden affair, making faces at the ring-master. 

This worthy at once drew a revolver and fired at the 
clown. Instantly there was a shriek of anguish, and the 
poor clown, dress suit and all, was seen to fall from the 
window into the ring. The clown's fretting at the cries of 
his drunken friend, his attempts to quit the ring and the 
arbitrary commands of the ringmaster for his return, had their 
effect, and the audience was sure a tragedy had ta.ken place. 
As the body of the clown struck the arena there was a cry of 
horror from the entire assemblage, and many rose to their 
feet, but at that instant the clown entered the ring from the 
dressing tent, and assisted in carrying out the cleverly made 
imitation of himself. The shock had been so sudden and 
severe that for a moment there was silence, and then the 
building was shaken by the applause and laughter. 

Again, after the principal rider had bowed himself from 
the ring at the end of the act, the clown entered into a race 
with the horse, a very fiery looking steed. The horse gain- 
ing upon him the clown leaped over the railing and ran out 
through the entrance toward the street. Instantly the horse 
was after him, and in what seemed less than a dozen seconds 
a cry of pain was heard from the clown and the horse leaped 
back into the ring carrying the poor fellow by the county 
seat, and shaking him very much as the cat shakes the 
mouse, or a rat-terrier does the rodent it has fastened upon. 
Again there was a cry of horror from the audience, but the 
entrance of the clown from another direction, bowing and 

224 



smiling, and in much better condition than he would have 
been in had not his dummy again acted for him, quieted 
matters once more. 

The piece de resistance, and the closing act of the circus, 
was strange to say — a ballet. And I want to say right here 
that I have seen the best ballets ever produced in America 
since the days of the Black Crook, as well as the famous 
productions in that line of the Alhambra and the Empire in 
London, but nothing I have seen on any stage equalled in 
its excellence of production, the magnificence of its costumes, 
the beauty of its women, and the interest of the plot this 
ballet produced in a cheap circus on the banks of the Rhine. 
The subject, as is frequently the case in Germany, was 
political. It dealt with the Bulgarian troubles, and the 
efforts of the different nations to get that country into their 
keeping. Incidentally a couple of tramps entered the 
country, and while one of them went down, the other rose 
until he become a prime favorite at court. This latter was 
an Irishman, and his endeavors to keep from being dis- 
covered by his old friend, when the latter is brought into the 
court a prisoner, were very comical. The dancing was 
splendid, but the most attractive feature was the entrance of 
the various nations to the court of Bulgaria. Each nation 
was represented by a couple of embassadors, accompanied by 
a magnificently dressed retinue. The nations that Germany 
is on good terms with were treated in a dignified fashion, as 
was the United States, whose embassadors were Uncle 
Johnathan and the Goddess of Liberty. These personages 
were elegantly made up, and their suite was royally costumed. 
Their entrance was the signal for loud cheering. 

England was not so well treated, her representatives 
being a long-whiskered, ridiculously dressed individual, 
accompanied by his fat and dowdy wife, and their retinue 
made up of about a score of children of all ages, the whole 
party being loaded down with bundles and band boxes. This 

225 



was a hit at the middle-class English tourist who does 
Germany on a Cook's ticket, with his eye-glasses, his whisk- 
ers, his hat box and his portable bath. Of course France 
was shown no respect whatever, her representatives consist- 
ing principally of pantaloons and mustaches. But after all 
the nations save Germany had entered the court, there was a 
moment's hush — the air seemed pregnant with a coming 
triumph — and it came. Bismarck representing Germany, 
entered the ring, unaccompanied. There was no need of a 
retinue; he seemed to fill the whole ring. For what seemed 
a long time there was no sound; the entire audience was 
awed into silence as the majestic figure of the ex-premier 
marched slowly toward the throne. Then in an instant all 
was changed. The audience " rose to him," cheered, yelled, 
filled the air with hats, and had the Iron Chancellor been 
there in his proper person, he could not have had a more 
royal welcome. And really it seemed to me that it must be 
the old hero himself. In all my experiences theatric I have 
never seen such a make-up. The size, costume, face, eyes, 
walk, the decorations, were all real — never a photograph was 
truer to its original. It gave me a thrill such as seldom 
comes to one who knows that he looks upon the false rather 
than the true, and evidently the entire audience felt the same 
glow of mingled admiration and awe — feeling as I felt, that 
in our cheers we were paying homage to the real hero, and 
not to the mere skill of an ordinary actor. And in truth our 
homage did belong to that great character in German history 
that will only become the more bright and mighty as the 
years show how large a place he filled in the development of 
the grander phases of Germany's life. 

With his entrance upon the scene, following which he 
reached out and took Bulgaria by the hand, and then with 
his lion front, drove the other nations from her presence, the 
circus came to an end, and the Duches, Durkee and myself, 
all of us strangely silent, came out into the beautiful square, 

226 • 



more than satisfied with the night spent at the circus on the 
bank of the river Rhine. 

And what a night that was. The skies were darkest 
blue, dotted with myriads of stars, amongst which the moon, 
almost at the full, rode serenely, " pale empress of the night." 
Across the river lights were twinkling in the cots among the 
vines; along the river front they gleamed from the palace 
steamers that lay waiting the morrow's journey on the his- 
toric water ; the music of a band was borne on the air from 
some neighboring cafe on the square, and a company of 
soldiers tramped by, on their way perhaps, to relieve the 
guards about the city. 

With a cheery good-night, Durkee left us, going to his 
room to write his daily account of his sight-seeing to the dear 
old mother in her far-off Iowa home, and the Duchess and I 
went to bed, — went to a genuine German bed, with one 
feather bed to lie on, and another to lie on us, in case the 
night should get chilly. And in ten minutes I was in slum- 
berland and all night long I dreamed that Bismarck, the lion, 
Au goost and myself were running races up and down the 
vine covered hills of the Rhine. 




^=T ., \y5? i =f 



227 



kiterarg 3Hu utters. 



" A cat may look at a King," they say. And so it is 
permitted to ordinary mortals to take note of the errors of 
those who are or have been, more than ordinary. 

The principal mistakes of writers are anachronistic. 
While many of these anachronisms are blunders, pure and 
simple, others have been purposely made for "art's sake." 
Howells has made such a defense of his anachronism in "Silas 
Lapham," when he refers to one of his characters as a " Daisy 
Miller" sort of a girl, although the action of his story is 
placed at a date earlier than that of Henry James' tale. And 
Howells has high authority for this. Aristotle has said: 
" Nothing is called a fault in poetry, but what is against the 
art; therefore a man may be an admirable poet without being 
an exact chronologist." And surely such license for "arts' 
sake " may be allowed the prose writer as well. Shakespeare, 
too, endorses the idea. His plays are comparatively full 
of anachronisms, and, though he makes no defense of his 
blunders, he certainly felt himself privileged in such matters, 
saying in "Pericles" : 

" We commit no crime 

To use one language in each separate clime. " 

Virgil seems to have been the earliest writer who was 
guilty of an anachronism. In the " Aenead " he makes Dido 
and Aeneas contemporaries, whereas Dido left Phoenicia 247 
years after the Trojan war, or the age of Aeneas, that is, 
about 953 B. C. In the second book we find another error, 
when Aeneas, seeing Helen in the temple of Vesta, is made 
to say : " Conjugiumque domumque, patres natosque videbit." 

228 



But, as Jupiter was the immortal father of Helen, and Leda 
and Tyndarus were both dead, it would be impossible for her 
to see her parents. 

Perhaps no great writer has so frequently or so glaringly 
mixed the climes, ages and customs as has the immortal 
William. 

In Coriolanus, Act I., Scene IV. he makes Titus Lartius, 
when extolling the valor of Coriolanus, say of him : 

" A soldier even to Cato's wish." Coriolanus died 200 
years before Cato was born. 

In Act V., Scene IV., Menenius Agrippa says of the 
same warrior : 

" He sits in his state as a thing made for Alexander." 

This may have been the fact, but, unfortunately for ex- 
actness, Coriolanus died a full century and a half before 
Alexander came into the world. And then, as if to " pile on 
the agony," in Act II. Menenius again says : 

" The most sovereign prescription of Galen is but em- 
piricutic — " 

Confusion worse confounded. A century and a half and 
two centuries out of the way is bad tnough, but what shall 
we say of six centuries ? Coriolanus was banished from Rome 
and died in the fifth century before the Christian era, about 
490 B. C, and Galen was not born until 600 years after- 
wards : 130 A. D. 

In the tragedy of Julius Csesar we recall : 

Brutus. — " Peace ! Count the clock." 

Cassius. — " The clock has just struck three." 

Caesar was assassinated on the 15th of March, B. C. 44, 
and the most a.ncient clock of which we have any certain 
account was erected in a tower of the palace of Charles V., 
King of France in 1364, by Henry de \\ yck, a German 
artisan. And so those were long ears possessed by Brutus 
and his friend. 

Lear was King of Britain in the early Anglo Saxon period 
of English history, while spectacles were not introduced into 

229 



Europe until the end of the 13th century, yet Shakespeare 
makes Gloucester say, in commanding his son to show him a 
letter which the latter holds : " Come, let's see ; if it be noth- 
ing I shall not want spectacles." 

" As cannon overcharged with double cracks," says the 
Bleeding Captain in the first act of Macbeth. Now, as can- 
non were first used at Crecy in 1346, and Macbeth was killed 
in 1054, the captain must have been another of Shakespeare's 
prophets. King John began to reign in n 99, but he, too, 
speaks of cannon : 

" Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France, 
For ere thou canst report I will be there, 
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard." 

Shakespeare also refers to turkey in one of his plays,, 
and to potatoes in another, the scenes of the play being enact- 
ed in times far antedating the discovery of our Thanksgiving 
bird and the Irishman's stay. 

Of blunders not anachronistic Shakespeare was likewise 
guilty. The vessel carrying the infant Perdita, for instance, 
in " A Winter's Tale," was driven by storms upon the coast 
of Bohemia, yet Bohemia has no coast. 

What seems to the writer the most peculiar of all the 
master's blunders, however, is in that most often quoted line 1 

" That bourne from whence no traveller returns." 

Hamlet makes use of this expression after his interveiw 
with his father's ghost, which interview proves that one trav- 
eller had returned. " Hallam's Greek" is an expression that 
always brings a smile to the face of the student. It grew out 
of a laughable blunder of Henry Hallam, the great scholar, 
when reviewing, in the Edinburgh "Quarterly Review," 
Knight's book: "An Inquiry tnto the Principles of Taste," 
he unmercifully lashed some Greek verses he supposed to 
have been written by Knight. The truth of the matter was 
that they were by Pindar, one of the greatest of Greek writers, 

230 



and Knight had the laugh on the critic ever after. Akenside, 
in his " Pleasures of the Imagination," viewed "the Ganges 
from Alpine heights," but perhaps this was one of his pleas- 
ures of the imagination, to so stretch his eyesight from one 
continent to another. 

Gilfillan, in an essay on Longfellow, says: "His orna- 
ments, unlike the Sabine maid, have not crushed him," which, 
besides being a poorly-constructed sentence, is all at sea. 
Tarpeia was a Roman maid, the daughter of a Roman officer. 
She opened the gates of Rome to admit the Sabines, demand- 
ing as her price the ornaments worn on the left arms of the 
soldiers, aiming to get their bracelets. The Sabine general, 
disgusted with the maid's treachery, commanded his soldiers 
to give her all that their left arms held. This not only in- 
cluded their bracelets, but their heavy shields as well, and as 
they threw them upon her as they entered the city, the weight 
of the shields rather than of the bracelets crushed her to death. 

Macaulay, so seldom at fault in expression, yet belongs 
to the mighty ones occasionally wrong. In his great history, 
referring to Lord Mordaunt's hair-brained project of a descent 
upon England, he says: "He had persuaded himself that it 
would be as easy to surprise three kingdoms as he long after- 
ward found it to surprise Barcelona." Now how could he 
have made a comparison of which one term was not in his 
mind until " long afterward?" 

Tennyson's 

" Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay," 

is a curious blunder. Its meaning, like that of Macaulay in 
the quotation given above, is perfectly clear, yet it is a bad 
expression for all that. Fifty years of life in Europe, with 
its intelligence, refinement and artistic and literary pleasures, 
would be better than untold years of existence in far Cathay, 
semi-barbaric, and entirely lacking in the elegancies and 
niceties that make life worth the living to the refined and 



intelligent mind, but, unfortunately, unlike our Western lands, 
a cycle has definite length of time in China, and means sixty 
years; so that, read with such an interpretation, the line be- 
comes faulty, while at the same time its meaning is still as 
clear as crystal. 

Baron Nordenskjold says that Greenland is a barren 
waste, fiat and level, yet we will doubtless still continue to 
sing of " Greenland's icy mountains." 




BRIDGE OF SIGHS. — VENICE. 



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